NELKA

(Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff. )

1878-1963

A Biographical Sketch. 

by Michael Moukhanoff

1964

FOREWARD. 

In attempting this biographical sketch of Nelka I am using thememories of 45 years together and also a great number of letters asmaterial. Her Aunt, Miss Susan Blow, had the habit of keepingNelka's letters over the years. There are some as early as whenNelka was only five years old and then up to the year 1916, the yearher aunt died. These letters reflect very vividly the personality, the ideas, the aspirations, the disappointments and the hopes of aperson over a period of a long life. They paint a very real pictureof her personality and for this reason I am using quotations fromthese letters very extensively. 

Nelka de Smirnoff was born on August 19, 1878 in Paris, France. 

Her father was Theodor Smirnoff, of the Russian nobility. Hergrandmother had tartar blood in her veins and was born PrincessTischinina. Nelka's father was a brilliant man, finishing theImperial Alexander Lyceum at the head of his class. A versatilelinguist, he joined the Russian diplomatic service and occupiedseveral diplomatic posts in various countries, but died young, whenNelka was only four years old, and was buried in Berlin. Nelkatherefore hardly knew him, though she remembered him and throughouther life had a great veneration for him and loyalty for his memory. 

Nelka's mother was Nellie Blow, the daughter of Henry T. Blow of St. Louis, Missouri. The Blow family, of old southern aristocraticstock, moved from Virginia to St. Louis in 1830. Henry T. Blow wasthen about fifteen years old and had several brothers and sisters. He was a successful business man who became very wealthy and was alsoa prominent public and political figure, both in St. Louis andnationally. He was a friend of both Abraham Lincoln and of PresidentGrant and received appointments from them. He was minister toVenezuela and later Ambassador to Brazil. He was active in politicsfrom 1850 on. Though his brothers were southern democrats, Henry Blowtook a stand against slavery and upheld the free-soil movement. During the Civil War he was the only one of the family to take theside of the Union and spent much of his time getting his brothers outof prison camps. For a time he was state senator and for two termswas Congressman in Washington. He also served as one of the threeCommissioners for the District of Columbia. 

He was married to Minerva Grimsley and had ten children. His daughterNellie Blow, while in Brazil with her father, met Theodor Smirnoffwho was then secretary at the Russian Embassy there. She married himin Carondolet, part of St. Louis, where the family lived, in 1872. They had three children, a boy and a girl, who died in infancy in St. Petersburg, Russia, and another girl, Nelka, who was born in 1878 andwas therefore the only living child. 

Henry T. Blow's oldest daughter (and Nelka's aunt) Miss Susan Blowwas a prominent figure in the American educational movement, writingand lecturing on education, and the one who introduced the Froebelkindergarten system in the United States. The youngest daughter, Martha, married Herbert Wadsworth of Geneseo, N. Y. She was a verytalented musician and painter and later became a very knownhorsewoman. 

After Nelka's father died in Europe, her mother returned to Americaand it was the first time that Nelka came here. As a daughter of aRussian, Nelka was also a Russian subject and remained a Russian thatway to the end. After the Russian Revolution, having no allegiance tothe Soviet Government, she became what is known as "stateless, " aposition which in later years she liked, for she always said that shebelonged to the World, not just one country. 

But as a child her mother wanted to bring her up as a Russian eventhough in many ways this was difficult, for there were no relativesand few connections left in Russia, her mother did not speak thelanguage and all ties and connections were in America. 

Because of this conflict of attachments, Nelka's mother and shetraveled many times back and forth between Europe and America. Hermother gave her a very complete and broad education both in Americaand in Europe. In Europe she attended a very exclusive and ratheradvanced school in Brussels. Because of this Nelka spoke not onlyperfect French and English, but German as well. 

When she was ten years old she went to a school in Washington. Shethen already showed interest and love for animals which later becamea dominant feature in her life. 

Writing to her aunt Susie from Washington 1888:

"At Uncle Charles Drake the boys have a little pet squirrel; it don'tbite them but it bites strangers if you give it a chance to. Theyhave some little guinea pigs that are very cute. "

She also at that age showed intellectual interests:

Washington 1888. 

"I read very much now whenever I get a chance to. I think it issplendid and always amusing. I can play lots of little duets on thepiano with Mama. I love it. "

Her stay in the school in Brussels was very profitable for herstudies and development and also showed in her letters how muchinterest she took in everything. 

Brussels 1893. 

"I know what you mean about my getting older. You think that at everydifferent age I would be content to be that age if I did not get anyolder. So I was. When I was ten I thought it would be dreadful to beeleven, but when I was eleven I was quite satisfied if I did not haveto be twelve, and so on. But ever since I have been fourteen I havethought it was awful and have never become reconciled to it. "

Brussels 1894. 

"I was first in grammar, literature and physics. Do you know the'Melee' of Victor Hugo? I have just read it and I like it so much. Iwould like to see some persons who have lived and who live. It makesme crazy to see people vegetate. "

Brussels 1893. 

"We went to Waterloo. We went by carriage all the way, first throughthe Bois de la Cambre and then on through the most perfect woodsimaginable. We went to a sort of little mound in the middle of thebattlefield with a huge lion on top as the emblem of victory. Onething, although of no importance, I like so much, that was threelittle birds nests one in the lion's mouth and one in each ear. Wasn't it nice? We then went to the museum at the foot of the hill. Igot a photograph of Napoleon and one of Wellington. I have such acontempt for Napoleon and I just take pleasure in comparing it withthe frank, open face of the Duke of Wellington. "

Already at that age she was seeking answers to moral questions andshowed her philosophical mind:

Brussels 1894. 

"'Une injustice qu'on voit et qu'on tait: on la commet soi meme. ' (Aninjustice one sees and keeps quiet about: one commits it oneself. ) Iwish more persons could or would recognize that truth. "

As a child Nelka did not speak Russian, because there was no onearound using this language. After her school in Brussels, her mothertook her to Russia to St. Petersburg. She was then seventeen. 

St. Petersburg 1895. 

"For the last few days I have been most blissfully absorbed inTaine's 'Ideal dans l'Art. ' I never knew it was in a separate volume. It is splendid. Of course you know 'Character' of Smiles. I don'tcare for it much, so sermony. I am going to the Hermitage tomorrowjust to see the Dutch and Flemish schools. "

The same year her mother took her to Paris and entered her to attendlectures at the College de France while living at the Convent of theAssumption. 

Paris 1895. 

"I have just come back from the College de France. I enjoyed thelecture very much; it was on Stendhal. You will be perhaps surprisedto learn that my educational career has taken a sudden turn. I amgoing into the Convent of the Assumption next week. Now don't behorrified. The Assumption is an exception to all the convents;besides the regular studies they have professors from the Sorbonne, Lycee Henry IV and other colleges to come in and give lectures onforeign literature, history, art, etc. Besides this unheard ofprivilege they have an atelier for drawing with Ducet to correct, andliving models, men, women and children. Of course Mama never imaginedsuch a thing possible in a convent, the general idea of convents notgoing beyond wax flowers. Here are the privileges I will have:

1) Clock-like life and no time lost. 2) No risk of disagreeable associations as they are most particularwho they take. 3) I will see Mama almost every day. 

"I shall have to go to bed at eight! Just fancy that!!! But then Ihave an astonishing capacity for sleeping and eating just now. "

While in Paris, in addition to the general subjects and the lecturesat the Sorbonne, Nelka also studied music, in particular the violin, and at a time was quite proficient in it, though she did not keep itup, as she did with painting, which she continued for a number ofyears. 

Nelka's mother tried to bring her up in the Russian spirit with agreat veneration for the memory of her father. Nelka grew up with aburning nationalistic feeling for Russia and a veneration for theRussian Emperor. Her mother kept up relations with such Russians asshe knew or who were with the Russian Embassy when in Washington. Andlater, when she grew up, Nelka continually kept up with her Russianfriends. 

I think characteristic of Nelka was her highly emotional expressionsof loyalty and devotion, an emotion which dominated all of her lifeand all of her actions. Anything she did or undertook was primarilymotivated by emotion or feeling rather than reason, but once decidedupon was carried out with determination and a great deal of willpower. 

But because the difference of national attachments and the resultingconflict there was always a tearing apart and a division, a dualityof attachments both to Russia and to America, and this seems to havebeen an emotional disturbance which lasted with her for a great manyyears. 

Her first, overwhelming emotional feeling was a patrioticnationalistic devotion to Russia and a mystic devotion to the Emperorand the Russian Orthodox Church. Then her next emotional feelingsembraced the devotion and loyalty for her family and her kin. 

But in Russia she had no relatives and all her family was in America. Because of that there seemed always a conflict of emotions, attachments and loyalties which dominated as a disturbance throughouther life, at least through the first half of it. This conflict offeelings was upsetting and painful and she suffered a great deal fromthe frustrations that these emotions often brought about. 

The Russian education of feelings for Russia which her mother triedto install in her succeeded, for throughout life Nelka remained afaithful Russian in all of her feelings and while having so many tiesin America, and being herself half American, she was constantly inconflict with the 'American way of life. '

From her early childhood Nelka had a tremendous love and devotion notonly to her mother but also to her two aunts, Miss Blow and Mrs. Wadsworth. When in America she and her mother would stay either inAshantee with the Wadsworths or in Cazenovia where Miss Blow had herhome. 

Early in life she was seeking and trying to think things out. She wasnever satisfied, never ready to accept something but always tried toanalyze it through her own thinking. At the age of twenty she wrotein 1898:

"I have absolutely no facility for expression; that is what is thematter. I see persons so clever, so talented, and genuine in theirline and with absolutely distorted points of view. How aggravating. Ifeel that in due time I may get to see something clearly (at leastthus far, if I do not see things clearly, I have not been pleased tosee any other way), and I am craving a means of giving out. You willsay I need the persistence to educate myself in the technique of somemode of rendering my impressions. I suppose it is so. That is what Ihave always meant with this desire to 'exhaust' myself. I need towork. I need to give out or I shall have such a mental indigestionthat I shall no longer be able to form a single thought. As it is, somany things are fleeting through me in incompleteness, in meresuggestion and so simultaneously at that, that I am bewildered. O, for complete cessation of consciousness, since this consciousness isbut that of an amalgamation quantity of incomprehensible suggestions, or else, for a vent for some of this shapeless, immature acquisition, so that something at least can complete itself. "

Was this just a disturbance of youth, of any youth, not completelyempty-headed, frivolous or superficial, or was this the result of adistinct inheritance of two very different and opposingpersonalities, of so different nationalities and with an addition ofeven tartar blood? I don't know. The fact remains that she wasconstantly emotionally disturbed and constantly seeking the answersof life, that so many have done and so few have found. 

In the same year, not long before her mother died, she wrote fromNarragansett Pier 1898:

"I am very much puzzled still on individuality, that is, on itseverlasting existence. I do not see at all how it can be, but I amwaiting. Perhaps I can see soon. I have been trying to get adefinition for art and for beauty. I have nothing that satisfies meyet. Art and beauty: I do not connect them at all in my mind. Artis based on significance first and this does not depend on beauty. Beauty is much more difficult to define than art. We have somehowgot the idea that only the beautiful pleases. Can beautiful beapplied to whatever pleases? I don't think so. Beauty istruthfulness of what? Of the original intention I suppose. Isbeautiful something or is it not? Anyway I detach it from that whichpleases. If beauty is something distinct that which pleases is notalways beautiful. Is beauty independent of taste? It is so hard tothink out. However, I never think anything without knowing it, and Iknow very few things, needless to say. "

Washington 1898. 

"It is terrible to be twenty! But I proved myself still young inbeing able to shed a tear over my departed teens. Mama and all ofour little Russian colony drank my health wishing me each in turn tofind myself each year one year younger, till I had to stop them lessthey eclipse me altogether. I think my nineteenth was the fullestyear I have ever had--crammed. "

When she was twenty, Nelka went with her mother to Narragansett Bayfor the summer. Here a very tragic event took place which left animprint on Nelka, if not for life, then certainly for many years. One afternoon, while sitting and talking with her mother, the lattersuddenly collapsed and died instantly. Nelka was there all alonewith her. The blow was terrible. For a very long time, being highlyemotional, she could not get over this tragic end of a person withwhom she had always been so close and so intimate. She went intodeep mourning and remained in a state of frozen sorrow. Writing toher aunt Susie she expressed so vividly the tragic feeling ofcomplete sorrow which gripped her:

St. Louis 1898. 

"No one could offer more generously what unfortunately I feel that Imay never have. Don't misunderstand me, dear Poodie, but my 'home'was forever lost when Mama left me and I can never find it exceptwith her. I am Mama's own and my 'home' such as you mean it can onlyexist in memory and anticipation. "

"I am thankful to God that I am left on earth with such aunts as youand Pats. Not many in my situation are so blessed. I shall alwaysfeel alone. But perhaps I have had more of Mama than many have intwice the time. "

It is true that by circumstances she had always lived very muchtogether with her mother, who as a widow had nothing but her. Evenwhen Nelka was in school, her mother lived in the same city and sawher constantly, and their closeness was very complete. 

Again she writes:

"In all events I have had more in life than I deserve, more than oneshould dare hope for. "

"I was sorry to disappoint you yesterday, but I cried all theafternoon. "

A year later--Washington 1899. 

"Try as I will I do not see how I can ever take up any interestagain. I have so little desire to go on with anything and I am sosatisfied with what I have had. "

Washington 1899. 

"I went to church this morning and I was surprised to realize howheathenish and unchristian the sermon sounded to me. It was painfulto feel that I did not believe one word of what a Christian ministersaid. What a network man seems to have made of the simplest things, wherein to be everlastingly confounded. Might one just look up andreach out overhead, instead of looking around one and trying to gropeat one's level. Truths made intangible by the impenetrable meshes offaulty creeds and imperfect reasoning. "

Ashantee 1899. 

"Please do not worry about me. I told you that I was peaceful andcontent, which I am. I want nothing which I cannot get and my mindis reposeful. I do not care to understand anything. That I have gotto accept whatever may come is manifest and the wherefore has ceasedto trouble me, if it ever did. In the instances that have thus farcome up in my life, what I should do has always been palpable enoughand has required more determination or will. My inclination is to doas little as I can to maintain my peace of conscience. While I haveno feeling of lassitude, I also feel no incentive, and while withoutthis one need not fail utterly, one will not probably accomplishmuch. "

"I don't believe there are many happy lives. Mama gave me morehappiness in the given number of years than I shall ever have again, though doubtless, if I live long enough, I shall have some more happymoments. This is to be supposed. But all this matters so very, verylittle. "

"I don't think that out of what is anything better is going to be. "

"The external situation in general is not bad and as far as I cansee, the trouble lies in the natures of the individuals and is moreor less beyond remedy. The tragedy arriving from trying to unite inaction and purpose where in mind and heart and soul there is nounion, no mutual illumination, no mutual comprehension of the pointof view, will be everlasting. 'Constater et accepter' and the soonerto 'constater' correctly, the sooner futile struggle ends. "

"Goodnight. I neither weep nor laugh and I am glad to go to bed;might be a good deal worse off, if I had no bed. "

Ashantee 1899. 

"I have lots of things to talk to you about but I don't know where tobegin. I want to say one thing that I think, which is that I thinkit is very difficult to judge practically when a too analyticaldefinition of a condition or state is substituted for the ordinaryand worldly vernacular. I think one must often fall into error fromtoo great an attempt of metaphysical accuracy (precision), forwhatever the thing in essence, the reaction thereof upon themultitude is made more forcible and more lucid to the mind by theterm applied to it at large. For instance a crank is not a person ofpeculiar fancies. "

Ashantee 1899. 

"Great griefs are beyond all expression, but the stillness ofagonizing moments is worse. Why, oh, why anything?"

"I cannot feel anything. That makes variety but it is being alone ininterests, the feeling unchanged, the purposes conceived and strivenfor singly that makes the struggle seem hard and the achievementfutile. "

A girl of twenty or twenty-one, she was always questioning, always, seeking, always disturbed. 

Ashantee, December 1899. 

"You see I am making use of the divine right of the individual whichyou are ever proclaiming and you must not mistake this forunniecelike freedom of speech. I can only live and learn and perhapslearn to see how often I am mistaken. I am still in that pitifulstate of youthful consciousness and have with it the confidence toact upon what I think. And to me almost every general rule becomestransformed under the allowances one must make for the modificationsof the issue at hand. I think that often all that is most vital inlife may be lost be adhering to formulated precepts and I think thatevery occasion calls for special and particular consideration for itssolution. "

After staying a while in America, after her mother's death, Nelkadecided to go to Europe in order to change her ideas and get awayfrom memories. This was a wise move and gave her a great deal ofcomfort, and helped build up her morale. She first went to Pariswhere she once again went to the Convent of the Assumption and tookup the study of painting in earnest at the Julien studios. FromParis she also went to visit her friends the Count Moltke and hiswife in Denmark and then later went for four months to Bulgaria whereshe stayed with Mr. And Mrs. Bakhmeteff, my uncle who was Russianambassador in Sofia and Madame Bahkmeteff who was Nelka's godmother. These two years in Europe were a very happy, steadying and pleasanttime for Nelka and she regained a hold of herself. Especially sheloved Paris as she always did. She told me once that when in Parisat the time she was so exhilarated that she felt like walking on air. But her observations of life and its questions continued as always, something that never left her. She wrote a great deal to her auntSusie and there are many interesting observations made during thatperiod. 

Paris 1899. 

"I don't believe there is any use trying to understand things untilan issue comes up and I believe that anyone who has heretoforeresponded to the flagrant necessities and requirements of life willbe able to solve and meet more readily, more justly and more normallyany problem which may arise. More is there to be learned and morebalance and judgment gained in attending to one's most minute dutiesthan in hours of mental anticipation of possible events andquestions, conjured up in necessary incompleteness. What beautythere is here! The intellectual and emotional stimulus would make acow tingle, and yet not some people I know. "

Paris 1899. 

"I am disgusted with the ending of the century with two wars, it is adisgrace. I think the whole world is very horrible anyhow and Idon't believe in worldly goods and possessions, or countries, orgovernments and I don't see why everyone by inhabiting tropicalclimes couldn't dispense with clothes and even the lazy could findfood where the vegetation is luxuriant. I think it is artificial tolive in a place where one's own skin is not sufficient protectionagainst the weather. I think the whole organization of everything isabominable and I don't believe it is a necessary stage ofdevelopment. Most ordinary lives are the quintessence ofartificiality and the grossest waste of time. I am more than everagainst the 'me' in myself. It is the source of all evil. "

Paris 1900. 

"I have read some illuminating bits and I think I will finish byfinally building myself a scant but solid creed for I have cast allpreconceived notions from me, rooted out all expressions of habit andinfluence, and cleared, though perhaps still warped dwelling of myformer tentative suppositions will contain henceforth but the jewelsof certain convictions, or remain empty evermore!"

Paris 1900. 

"The stimulating effect of this place is wonderful. I don't knowwhat it is, but it is just life to everything in one. I haveabsolute peace of mind and I have no mental worries or torments. Nothing seems complicated, nothing seems involved and everything thatI can help is satisfactory. I want to lose myself in my work and Ihave every advantage for doing so. Paris is wonderful, I never soappreciated it before. "

"I am so busy, I have my whole week planned ahead for almost everysecond. You see I am at the studio every morning including Saturdayand have several lessons a week in the afternoon. New Years I dinedat the La Beaumes. There was just the immediate family and we weretwenty-three at table. " (These were part of a French branch of therelatives of Nelka on her mother's side. )

Paris 1900. 

"I can understand people with no sentiment, but I will not toleratepeople who scoff at it. "

"I am so glad to have the Russian church here. I go every Sunday. "

Paris 1900. 

"I don't have a minute to spare. This is what I wanted and the lifethough very full is easy and tranquil. The free reality of thoughtis delightful and wonderful. I do not include freedom of expression. I wonder how much I fool myself? It is not an intolerance whichwishes to promote self but which is limited and dead to a variationof its own species because it lacks the consciousness of its ownincompleteness. A man who does not wish to dominate and emphasizehis will upon his surroundings, including people, is not a whole man. My Russian is getting on. I will be very glad when I have masteredthe language, then I am going to begin Italian. "

As a child Nelka did not speak Russian and only started studying itwhen grown up. When she later went to Russia she still was very weakin the language and only gradually picked it up with practice, buteventually knew it very well. 

Paris 1900. 

"How madly busy all the little people are, bussing over the planet, and for what? How nice it is to go to sleep. I am going to bed. P. S. I think it is an intellectual crime to wear long skirts in thestreets. "

Paris 1900. 

"One must be earnest or else laugh at everything and end in despair. I am so satisfied with my present condition that I think it would befoolish to upset it all after so short a time. I am just beginning tofeel the peaceful reaction of it all and I dread the idea of gettingroused again before having fully got hold of myself. The totalchange I felt necessary proved a salvation and that complete absenceof all reminders of the past year is the only thing wherein I can getquiet. I do not want to go over what I have felt. Suffice it to saythat I want to stay just as I am until after next winter when I willfeel like going back to America without regret. I do not feel equalto any more emotions. "

Paris 1900. 

"I do not understand the 'variety of perfection. ' I think it isimpossible and therefore absurd to try to preface for this life, wellup on our own inheritance, as you say. There has been too muchpractical research and study and not enough character building, theresult: total lack of balance and maniacs. Anything better thatwould admit of more possibility of collectedness of peacefulcontemplation of the possibility of perfecting the least act with thewhole of oneself. The least act is worth it. How does one live now?Scattered over the universe, over the time. There are no wholepeople except a few who keep their entirety within the arbitrarylimitations of prejudice and habitual notions of which they arepossessed. The other: they are fragments, cranks and nonentities. One more thing, I do not think that a nation can be judged by itsgreat men. Great men belong to humanity, to the century, to anythingbut not to their country. I think intelligence and capacity is neverlocal, and it is the average and the habit of life that determinesthe country. "

Paris 1900. 

"I do not think that anything is likely to happen to me exceptperhaps softening of the brain and that would happen anywhere. Ihave seen no one to whom it is likely that I will lose my heart, so Iam quite safe. "

Paris 1900. 

"I do find everything so funny, and people so funny, not individuals, but as a whole, by funny I mean queer. The senseless mode ofexistence, the superfluous education: these artificial restrictions. It is especially the artificiality of so many things. Who is goingto do away with it all? I don't understand anything and I know thereis no use trying to build up an understanding on rules. "

That summer Nelka went for a month's visit to Denmark to her friendsCount and Countess Moltke. 

Glorupvej, Denmark 1900. 

"We were still two days on the steamer getting to Bremen and then wechanged trains and boats about fifteen times in 24 hours gettinghere. But once here it is beyond all words in delight. The place isperfectly beautiful. I cannot describe it to you. It is so quiet, so far away from everything. Beautiful forests that we drivethrough, deer all over, swans, fountains and all so old. I lead amost regular of lives. Everyone is exact to the minute, for mealsand everything. I feel that it is a very great opportunity I amhaving to be here in Denmark and see all this new country. It is sointeresting and I enjoy it so much. It was very sweet of Louisetteto ask me. "

Glorupvej, Denmark 1900. 

"What you write in answer to my saying that I like 'whole soulness':it is precisely the whole soulness which is not a conscious conquestthat I like. I appreciate the merit of the last but it is not thatwhich attracts me, which also reminds me that I want to tell you thatI have come to the firm, clear and definite conclusion that a personthat loves is not necessarily loving, nor a person that givesnecessarily generous. A loving person may never love and a generousperson may never give, and the practice of either quality does notindicate an impulse. One can conceive, accept and appropriate theidea of generosity, lovingness, etc. , etc. , and act it, but that isnot the thing. I hate all effort which has for its aim the creationof self, the conscious creation. I like the self to become throughslavery to the best natural impulses and through sacrifice brought inone's affections. Seeing that we do depend on each other, it seemsto me admissible that the surrender of self, which continues to bewith me the highest of everything, should allow of a direct object asits means. I used to have a holy respect of the majority. Now, whenI see how many imbeciles go to make up that majority I am no longerafraid to throw over any precept that has filtered into my head, andif ever there was a revolutionist in thought, it is I. Foolishbeliefs and hobbies have become adorned with so much that appeals tothe sense of the beautiful that one clings even to that, but thenthat is another element which can envelop rational things as well. Of course all cannot help but be well, but then I am sure that thepresent condition is quite off the track and I have no respect foranything but pain, joy and sacrifice which are the only realities. Life makes standards and standards don't make life. "

Glorupvej 1900. 

"I can tolerate wrong and weakness and everything else but thatsearch for self and above all that pompous blowing of a horn beforesuch empty things, such big sounding ambitions, that mock glory, thatswelling in noble pride upon such fictitious hallucinations, thatpoor mesquin grandness. It is exasperating. I hate ambition toachieve. However, I suppose I am very foolish. I am a mass ofvanity and self-seeking in my own way, but it is a great pleasure tocry down. I get roused sometimes on things that are not my businessand I have felt very much inclined to express my opinion about something, but I suppose I had better not. "

"My life I think is molded on circumstance and on the best of myinstinct and judgment which may be faulty but which in every specialinstance seems the safest to me. To remind oneself constantly thatone's life is made up of days prevents one from taking most things'au tragique' and makes existence passable enough. "

Paris 1900. 

"Life is so short. The only peace is in remembering how short lifeis. I work so hard at my painting. My efforts alone deserve someresults, but it is slow in forthcoming. This week however there isan improvement. I get up before seven every day and go to bed atnine and drink eight glasses of milk a day. I hope you are pleased. Some emotion, more extremeness, some craziness, some feeling, reallyI think it is necessary. I do not see any satisfaction in anythingbut intense feeling. Intense feeling which may come even in thequietest of lives and which does not depend upon external events. Itis astonishing how easy it is to be tolerant of people'spersonalities, however unsympathetic to one, and how very easy alsoto be intolerant of their point of view. "

"There is nothing so disastrous as to be fooled by the appreciationwhere it is not deserved. How I wish I could do any one thing well. "

Paris 1900. 

"I hope it is a satisfaction to you to know how well pleased I amhere and that I am absolutely content. I think I will indulge myselfand get a jewel with your Xmas present. 'The Perfect One' loves todeck out in gems! I have been reading an essay on Tolstoi and I amtook with an attack of asceticism, unequaled by any heretofore. This, following my last sentence, is charmingly typical of mycharacter, is it not? There is one girl here who really might bevery nice. She is eyed as being somewhat emancipated by thehousehold I think, but I think it is only Youthful freshness of afirst departure and inexperience in calculating the impression shemakes on the style of her audience. "

At the end of the same year Nelka went for four months to Sofia, Bulgaria where she stayed with the Russian Minister Mr. Bakhmeteff, my uncle and Madame Bakhmeteff who was an American and Nelka'sgodmother. 

She enjoyed very much that stay in Bulgaria and had a veryinteresting and pleasant time and great success. From Sofia shewrote a number of letters which reflect both the interest of her staythere as well as the continued constant searching so typical of heryouth, and perhaps of her whole life. 

Sofia 1900. 

"How can I tell you how I feel at being here. It is an entirely newworld. So interesting and so beautiful! No one could be lovelier tome than Madame Bakhmeteff. She comes in to my room every two minutesand asks me if I have anything under the sun and seems so pleased tohave me here. It is really delightful. I have a sitting room nextto my bedroom all to myself, filled with every book that I have beenlonging to get hold of. Everything is so picturesque. I wasdelighted with Denmark but how different this is. There is somethingI respond to in that orderly, cold atmosphere, but I think there ismore that I respond to in the Orient. How much more simple and lesscomplicated the life is here. I was almost stopped at the Hungarianand Servian frontier because I had no passport. By the merest chanceI had a very old one in my bag which was absolutely invalid butwhich, added to my absolute refusal to leave the train, got me by thethree frontiers in the end. I called a Turk and a Servian who werein the same compartment to my rescue and for an hour or more carriedon a heated discussion in every language. I am going to ride everyday much to my delight. The diplomatic corps have to depend almostentirely on each other and it is very interesting being thrown withpeople of so many different nationalities. I have been living sofully it seems to me for the last three or four years and stillalways a crescendo. I don't know why I always write so much aboutmyself--egotistical youth--but how I realize my youth. Even whileyouth itself makes my head whirl, I stand back within myself and sayalmost sadly--it is youth. It is sad in a way because I know thatthe reaction of great interest upon me is youth, and not theinterest. "

Sofia 1900. 

"You speak of danger; I don't see where danger is. The worst evil isprejudice. Without prejudice and without too much drive for worldlyattainments, I don't see much danger. I am satisfied as far as Imyself am concerned. Every moment is exciting and the regret orirritation I feel against many existing conditions is not whollydisagreeable. This is youth, and when I am older I will jog along ata slower rate. I am not like you, or like almost anyone I know, butI admire and respect those most whom I resemble the least. I am onemass of contradictions to myself, perhaps, supremely self-centered. "

Sofia 1900. 

"The freedom I have, good or bad, does not depend on the externalconditions of one's life. I have enough sense of what is practicalto keep in certain lines. No conditions on earth would hamper mementally and I want to get life-proof through living. "

"How I hate business! More and more I am beginning to think less andless of what one accomplishes materially in this life. What does itmatter? I think it is less help to be able to help those about one alittle materially and be more or less a nonentity as an individualthan to be able to mean something as a person with a heart andcomprehension. There are some beautiful things in this life thateverything organized tries to make hideous and monstrous and I wouldalways say 'gather ye roses while ye may. ' I think that every onehas almost a right to some happiness and a certain indulgence and the'droit de temperament, ' means something and need not always beselfish. If you do not think this, then there is only the otherextreme of austere abnegation of self for any cause however trivial. Nature is the only guide and I don't believe Nature is bad. Ofcourse the curse of freedom will allow one for a long time to distortand vilely modify natural instincts, but at least one can fly fromthe too palpable artificial. Dear Poodie, don't sigh. I only letoff steam in words--that is safe. I am still a slave to thisdisgusting civilization and always your very devoted 'Perfect One', that is to be, or might have been, Nelka. "

Sofia 1900. 

"I really ought not to talk because I don't give myself the troubleto put my thoughts on general things in order and in every comment Ialways have the desire to embrace everything. I follow my ownthoughts but love the immediate point and my brain is not in theproper condition to command its own vagaries. "

Sofia 1900. 

"What a delightful and full summer I have had. I can only reiteratethat I am satisfied. I have had so much. Given my nature and mylife, more than anyone I know. I may be mistaken in everything but Inever doubt my application when I am about to act. Perhaps I willsome day, but I don't think so. I have learned a certain 'science dela vie, ' meaning this time the artificial, irrational life that ispracticed and that I despise. Apart from this I have my own notionof real life and that is my own luxury. When I write so it sounds sobig and so out of place for a girl, I always regret saying anything. If what I think means anything it will be shown in my life and so farmy life is only a selfish, soft existence, so perhaps that is all Imean. I don't know that I love many things with conviction, but Iknow I have a contempt with conviction for many things. "

"I have stopped looking at life as written with a big L. Regardingit only as an indefinite term of years is much less appalling; itdoes not lessen the joys and does lessen the sorrows anddisappointments. The method now is to catch every minute and stretchit for all it is worth. "

"You say I am not adaptive. It is difficult to s'entendre on whatthat means. Many sides I am, to my detriment. Too many sides for itseems to me I can fit into almost any opening with equal interest. And I find very few environments wholly uncongenial. I am notconscious of exacting in my nature any particular strain or line butwhat irritates and antagonizes me in any environment is thepresumption on the part of the creator of that environment thattheirs is the only world-view. I suppose the really strongest thingin me is an instinctive spirit of contradiction, for I always risespontaneously against anything and everything that is proclaimed tome as being so. This is perhaps rather sweeping but it is more orless so. People influence me never by what they tell me but by thegeneral impression they make on me and that I see them make on otherpeople. I believe what I just wrote is nonsense. I only mean to saythat I am only intolerant of intolerance. I think the ordinary rulesof good behavior demand a certain amount of tolerance and with thatany milieu is possible. I am sure of a few things but these fewthings are very firmly fixed in my mind. Nothing surprises me. "

Sofia, 1900. 

"I know there is a certain fundamental something in me that will makeme apply the same reasoning to everything and I am never worriedabout any question. In fact I don't know what it is to have aquestion in mind--that which might be one is simply left out. Icannot say I know myself of course, but I know more of myself thananyone else does and I am certainly more severe. I do not recognizea good thing in me. I believe I am level headed and more or lessreasonable, but that is not my merit. Any sanity of judgment I havecomes from Mama. Whatever good there may be is due entirely to her. I am not afraid of anything. I am ready for anything. The truth isthe only thing worth caring about. Not the great universal truthsthat one can search and cherish while living in a mass of lies butjust the truthfulness of one's life and everyday actions. Try tocall things what they are and it is a perfect realm of everincreasing delight, for everything around us is lies from beginningto end. But in general everything is lies and the ambitions are allfalse and the education is no better than the shoes that are put onChinese female feet to stunt and deform them. What a sweet andperfect simile. How did I happen to fall on it?"

Sofia 1900. 

"I am thinking seriously of working just about twice as much as I didlast winter. If one would do anything the least in art one must giveoneself to it 24 hours and live these 24 hours double. There is noart but good art and what is not best is not art at all. I hatepretense. It only exists among people who know nothing. I knownothing in any line but I would rather remain a nullity studying withserious intentions than profit of or repose upon some meaninglessaccidental achievement. Of all traits presumption is the mostinsufferable. Oh, how one is anxious to put one's finger in pies oneis completely incapable of understanding. "

After her stay in Bulgaria, Nelka return to Paris to finish herstudies before returning to America. 

Paris 1901. 

"Oh how stimulating this place is and how much study and achievementthere is. What a lecture I heard. It was more helpful to me thananything I can remember for a long while. And what a book I havegot! A complete resignation without losing energy on one's work athand that is what one may strive for. Energy and conviction and élanare not usually resigned to all obstacles and resignation is oftenlassitude. I feel resignation so necessary and at the same time Ihave such infinite faith in the power of 'il faut' (one must). Theworst thing I am afraid of is to become tired in the way I mean. Ithink it is more hopeless than disgust and disillusion. "

Paris 1900. 

"Where can I read something holding your point of view which would bemore within my range of understanding than Hegel? I can't understandfree will as independent of our physical being and I don't see howwill can be something different from a kind of complicated reflex. Iam afraid there is no help for it. I will have to inform myselfsomehow. Anyway my head always seems clearer over here. I wish Icould be so in America. You would not believe how waked up I canget. I believe it is in the air. There is something bothstimulating and relaxing in the moral atmosphere that I feel onlyhere. "

After her stay in Paris and Bulgaria, Nelka returned to America andstayed either with her aunt Miss Blow or with her aunt Mrs. Wadsworth: in the summer in Cazenovia or Ashantee, in winter inWashington where her Aunt Martha had a large house which had justbeen built and occupied for the first time in 1900. Her aunt kept upa very active social life and while Nelka stayed through all thissocial activity she never liked it. She kept in close contact withthe varied European embassies and especially the Russian embassy, where she enjoyed the influence of the European atmosphere. 

Ashantee, November 1901. 

"I do not want to complicate the interpretations of my condition andI want above all things to cease dwelling so selfishly upon it. There is no need of looking for unaccountable voids, longings and thelike. I have been unhappy and shattered ever since Mama died. Myown nature gives me much to contend with and I want to get away fromit all. I am unfit for anything but concentration, and I am not madefor the world I live in. If I am not married by the time I amtwenty-seven, I am determined to go into a convent or our Red Cross. I may change my mind many times but this is my last word for thepresent. I have a contempt, when not pity, for the lives of most ofthe people I see around me and mine is among the most selfish andaimless. I do not wish to read or think or study. And as for'consciously living for a true world view, ' I want to run away fromevery form of consciousness. "

Ashantee 1901. 

"You speak in your letter of forming an unconscious totality offeeling and tendency out of their necessarily limited experiences, and of not living independently of the deposit of human struggle andthump. Certainly one should perhaps profit by the last but I cannotimagine acquiring anything: conviction, principle, or any attitude ofmind except by simple experience. I think we may experience in anordinary life all that is necessary to build a sufficient andadequate world view. And what I read means nothing to me exceptwhere I can compare it with my own experience or consider it inrelation to my own experience. I do not think that I can have aproper world view until I am old enough to have had time toexperience life and I don't want to go ahead of my experience inreading. "

Ashantee, November 1901. 

"Kitty and I have just come in from a long disagreeable day inRochester where we are having clothes made. It is extremely painfulto me, but all this kind of thing just pushes me more in the oppositedirection and makes me firmer in my fast maturing resolution. I amexceedingly blue. In fact, it is only occasionally that I am not so, and, as in the light of the world I have an unusual amount of thingsto make me the contrary, it must mean surely that I am not of theworld and I wish, wish, wish that I were out of it. "

Ashantee, December 1901. 

"I am going to try and be reasonable and as mildly satisfactory as Imay be and avoid extremes and keep hold of myself, as the onlypossible justification of my points of view and ideas, for no onewill agree with them, and one cannot claim any merit in these, whenthe result offered is not better than anyone else. "

"I will never be influenced by anyone until I see someone who mastersintelligently, calmly and practically situations as they occur. Ihave a great deal in myself to fight and the powerful helpinginfluence has been Mama and the warnings I have had from witnessingthings that went wrong. I think the more one lives and the more onethinks, the simpler things get. The greatest of all dangers seems tome to fool oneself. Really this seems to me to be the only hopelessplight and there comes to a certain fascination in trying to saythings plainly to oneself. Nothing is as strong as plain truth abouta thing, and the moment one shirks it one is lost. "

One can see that back in America she was again distressed, discontented and uncertain. She had lost the tranquility and theassurance which she had while in Europe. It seems to me that forsome reason or other this feeling of unsatisfaction was always muchgreater in America than in Europe and here she was always disturbed. 

A heavy test to her feelings of loyalty for Russia came with theadvent of the Russo-Japanese war in 1904. America was in those daysvery pro-Japanese and Nelka suffered in her feelings while living inWashington. Finally, in a feeling of exasperation, she leftWashington in 1904 and returned to Paris. Here she studied at theFrench Red Cross to qualify as a nurse. She also resumed herpainting studies. For medical practice she worked at a children'sdispensary. 

Denmark 1903. 

"The trip is such a complicated one (back to Paris) with suchindefinite changes and waits that I feel sure it would not be rightto go alone despite my mature years, and so there is nothing to do. "

(She was 25 years old. )

Paris 1904. 

"I have painted a portrait of myself, grinning from ear to ear, whichyou probably would not like, but it is the best I think I have done. It was for the Salon with Julien's great approval but it was refusedwith eight thousand other masterpieces. It is a fearful blow to mebut salutary for my soul no doubt and this being my holy week I amgoing to try to benefit from the disappointment and chagrin. I mustgo and study now. I am doing 5 hours a day of concentrated study. "

"I am having an attack of 'anti. ' I am getting to feel further andfurther away. I like Denmark. I am very much interested in thecountry, the people, the language. I think the difference betweencountries, the national characteristics so curious. This is such abeautiful place. It grows upon me more and more. The park is lovelywith deer, hares and pheasants all around. "

Paris, 1904. 

"I go to the dispensaire every morning. I have got so much into itthat I cannot get out. I enjoy it so much that I only remember oncein a great while that I am be doing a little good in it as well. This war makes me feel terribly unhappy for many reasons, I cannotexplain. I have an unreasoning longing to be in Russia and doingsomething. It seems such a useless ridiculous war and so much loss. I cannot understand the way people view things. The loss of life andsuffering just make me sick. I see no dignity or sense in anythingbut quiet and peace. The more importance one attaches to a question, the more pitiful and absurd it seems. What matters externally?"

Paris 1904. 

"I feel old and addled. I am still dispensing with rage and interest. I was given a number of girls to give an illustration lesson inbandaging this morning. We have had a number of interesting caseslately. I shall be sorry to leave them. "

(She was 26 years old, working at the French dispensary. )

Paris 1904. 

"I have always before undertaken too much and accomplished less. I donot think it is what one studies but the way one studies anythingwhich amounts to anything. As I have often said before, I have morefaith in what I think in spite of myself, in the preferences that Idiscover in myself, than in those things which I consciouslyinvestigate. About the affections, I don't know. The affections Ihave seem stable enough to me and I feel an ultimate capacity for alarger order. "

After completing her Red Cross studies in Paris and receiving adiploma which granted her the status of an apprentice nurse, Nelkamade arrangements to go to Russia. This was not an easy undertaking. Nelka had few connections in Russia; her knowledge of the languagewas limited, her knowledge as a nurse likewise limited, and it took agreat deal of determination to carry her plan through. 

The war at the moment was coming to an end with the defeat of Russiaand a revolutionary movement was afoot. The front thousands of milesaway made transportation of the wounded lengthy and difficult, and, long after the hostilities had come to an end, a steady stream ofwounded continued to arrive in the capital. 

It was a trying and difficult time for Nelka. She was deeply upsetby the tragic events of the lost war and the grumblings of therevolution. 

She got in touch with some friends in Russia to help make necessaryarrangements. A friend of her mother's, Mr. Pletnioff, made allpreliminary arrangements to have her accepted in the Kaufmancommunity of sisters under the leadership of Baroness Ixkull, a verycultivated and capable person. 

Also the Bakhmeteffs were at that time in St. Petersburg and they toohelped make arrangements. Despite the fact that Nelka was then 26years old, she did not feel that she should travel alone and wastrying to find someone who was going to Russia from Paris. A friendwho was to go had to put off her trip and so recommended Nelka to afriend of hers, a Madame Sivers, with whom she went and with whomlater she became quite a friend. 

When she arrived she went at first to stay with Mr. And Mrs. Bakhmeteff. 

Early in 1905 she wrote from St. Petersburg, upon her arrival:

"Yesterday already I saw Madame Hitrovo, Veta, Rurik and Veta's son"(my grandmother, my mother and my uncle). 

This was the first time that I saw Nelka. The Bakhmeteffs gave aluncheon at the Hotel de France where they were staying to meetNelka. As it was a family affair with no outsiders, my mother tookme along. I was then about seven years old. A child of seven is notgenerally impressed by a grown up person, but Nelka made a tremendousimpression on me when I first saw her: an impression which never leftme throughout life. From that day on she meant something to me, andthat something grew and grew in my feelings for her with time andyears. 

The Russian Red Cross had a number of sister "Communities" who weremanaged by ladies of the Russian society. The one Nelka joined wasthe Kaufman community under the able management of Baroness Ixkull. 

Nelka wrote from St. Petersburg in 1905:

"Baroness Ixkull seems an awfully clever, energetic and altogethercharming person. I think although the Bakhmeteffs highly approve, they are afraid she is just on the edge of being a little 'advanced, 'which to such arch conservatives as they, seems all wrong. Theextremes are very great. You see Pletnioff is somewhat liberal, butnothing in the sense that the word is used abroad and Mr. Bakhmeteffis for the strictest adherence to middle age regime. Between the twoI must find the just milieu. Anyway everyone is in a certain senseconservative just now. For the moment I can only tell you of mydelight at being here. I suppose the Constitution had to come butsurely autocracy is the only ideal Government and I am sorry that thenation was not equal to it. "

Here we see this very distinct adherence to the principles of theRussian government of the autocratic regime, the adherence to whichseemed only natural and acceptable to Nelka in her idea of apatriotic Russian. 

St. Petersburg 1905. 

"Tomorrow it will be one week that I am in the hospital and I amgetting quite accustomed to it. It is certainly a very completechange of habits in every way, but the essentials are all right. Over and above everything is the joy of at last being able to do, ifonly a little, for the poor soldiers who have suffered so much andwho are so good and patient. I shall never cease to regret that Idid not get here at the beginning of the war. This is a perfectlybeautiful hospital, quite large and everything perfect. The soldiersare so well provided for that I should think that some of them wouldalmost hate to leave; but oh, Poodie, it is so terrible to see them, many so young, without arms or legs and one whose head was almostblown off, so grateful to have a new glass eye put in him the otherday. Soon they are going to make him a nose. On Thursday there wasthe opening of a new ward and the service and benediction were veryimpressive. The Queen of Greece came and I was presented to her. "

"There are four sisters in a room but the rooms are large with twobig windows and they are very nice. Sister Belskaya speaks everylanguage and has helped me a great deal. I am managing to get onsomehow with Russian but the other night when I had a conversationwith a Sister Swetlova on subjects that were not absolutelyelementary it was awfully funny. While the ward is being settled, 5of us are being sent to the big city hospital where all the sistershave been for a time to learn all kinds of things, but it is to be, Ithink, only for a few days. O, Poodie, I cannot describe it to you. The hospital itself is all right enough, but the poor people! Thereare 3, 000 there. We are in the surgical section for women. It is veryvarious and valuable experience as you learn everything in a shortwhile, but I would not care to prolong it. "

During the summer of 1906 Nelka went with some of the wounded toFinland where the convalescents were sent to recuperate in thecountry. She was then in her second year working with the wounded andwas hoping to be able to return to America before too long. 

Politics were very much of importance at that time in Russia whichhad just emerged from an attempted revolution and certain politicalchanges had taken place. A new parliamentary system had been formedbut did not last and was breaking up. Nelka wrote in 1906 fromFinland:

"I cannot say what a feeling of relief and thankfulness I had whenthe Duma (Parliament) was dispersed. I cannot see that any solutionis anywhere in view. No one seems to have the least assurance of whatwill happen. I feel so stirred up I really almost wish I was a manand could enter into the question and do something. "

"Poodie, Poodie, do you realize that I am almost an old lady of 28. It seems so funny for that is really honorable--60 is young besideit. I wish you could see the sky here. Such sunsets I have neverseen--every day different and the colors on the lake unimaginable. Isimply go flying to the roof, I don't know how many times and lookand look and look. "

Finland 1906. 

"But believe me liberalism abroad is quite different from here andthere is so much bad in it here. I don't think there is much hopefor Russia. I don't believe we have that in the character to maintaina nation. "

"What a terrible thing the attempt to kill Stolypin. The people herereally are out of their minds. The ones that think that thesemurders are for an 'idea. ' O, Poodie, I have learned so much since Ihave been here. "

"One sister, Sister Pavlova, is very nice--an aristocrat of correctviews and a great satisfaction. She was two years at the War in acontagious hospital. "

Finland 1906. 

"I have the apothecary now and put up ten or fifteen prescriptions aday. I find it quite agitating for a novice and am simply calculatingand recalculating over and over again. I am also in charge now of theoperating room and surgical dressings, and do massage and night dutyas before. This is just while we are here. When we go back toPetersburg I will have the ward duty alone as before. "

"I am on night duty after a very strenuous day--assisted the doctorwith the instruments and material for 25 dressings, put up eightprescriptions myself, dressed the wounds of five Finns, spent sometime in the ward, went over the soldier's money accounts, did an hourmassage, slept one hour and tomorrow morning I am going to take thetemperatures at 6 A. M. , at seven put up a bottle of digitalis, ateight get into clean clothes, prepare the surgical dressing room fortwo dressings, give the instruments and material, and at half pasteight or quarter to nine start with two soldiers for Petersburg--onewho is to be operated and the other who has been so ill for a weekthat they think it best to take him back as quickly as possible. Neither of them can sit up. Don't you think that is an undertaking? Iam going to take the train back immediately after delivering them atthe hospital and hope to get back by 5 or 6 o'clock and have a grandrest up for Monday. "

"Is life so full of resource or is the resource all in one'simagination and state of mind. It seems to me there is so much, somuch, and yet the most sometimes seems just to suffer being 'sufferedout' by the effect of certain moral efforts. "

Finland 1906. 

"This whole life is something so complete and so different and I feelnow so much at home in it. Had I been different I might not haveneeded what this experience has given me, but as it is, you will finda great deal more of me and have a great deal more of me than beforeI left. I know myself too well and know too well the unstableness ofmy moral interior to say that I may not need again some time. "

St. Petersburg 1906. 

"I often wonder now, since this life here in the hospital is sodifferent from everything which has opened such new vistas, if thereare an indefinite number of experiences which each would offer newpoints of view. For there it would seem that one must abstain fromany general conclusions upon the things of the world, owing to one'slimited experience. I am awfully glad to be thrown in thisassociation with the soldiers. This is quite a revelation. They arein comparison with other people just like charts for little childrento read, as compared with some hazy book. Then there are all degreesof awakening. It is most interesting. I sometimes think that humanbeings are as different from each other as things of a differentspecies. "

St. Petersburg 1906. 

"I told her (Baroness Ixkull) that I thought of leaving in August, ifpossible. She is so urgent about my staying altogether in thecommunity that it makes it very hard to leave. At last I seem to havefound something where I am thought to be very useful and I havefitting qualities, but alas so far from Poodie and Pats that it isnot possible. At least it is a thing I know I am prepared for now andthat is always open to me as a vent for energy, an occasion forhelping and regulator of the nervous system. If there is war again Ithink nothing will hold me, but otherwise I am going to try to makemy character a possible one so that it will be a more peaceful memberof the family with you and Pats. "

"No matter what I do later this year will have a lasting benefit. Idon't know what it is. I never seem to get enough of life. I know thefeeling that satisfies for I have had it a few times. Perhaps it isyouth, perhaps it is egotism, but anyway it is something that makesone wish one had five lives to live at once. I am laboring through avery interesting book on the Evolution of matter which demands agreat deal of concentration of a brain as uninformed in matters ofscience as mine. I refuse to think and accept things in 'terms' whichwhen it gets to the point of the disassociation of atoms becomesdifficult not to do. I wish I had a really active brain that wouldgive me the results I want without requiring such an immense amountof will which I can't command. "

St. Petersburg 1906. 

"My plans seem unable to take any definite shape for the moment. Icannot leave my soldiers that I have had from the beginning and it isuncertain yet when they will be in a condition to leave. I wish Iwere a few years younger. I want to do so much. "

(She was then 28 years old. )

St. Petersburg 1906. 

"It is now seven A. M. I am just finishing night service but I feelquite lively just because I know it is ending. Yesterday the'sidelkas' (apprentices) received the cross. After they graduate theycan take cases and be paid about $20 a month. This course is only oneyear. The sisters' course is two years but of course their work isalways free. "

In Russia all nursing was considered to be a vocation and as suchcould therefore not be paid. All sisters received their maintenanceand clothing from the community but no pay. 

St. Petersburg 1906. 

"I have just received your letter telling me of Trenar's death. "(Trenar was a borsoi dog which Nelka had and left in Cazenovia. Thiswas before she had her poodle Tibi. ) "Mrs. Lockman wrote me some timeago that he was very sick with distemper but had not written mesince. Useless to say how I feel. Everyone does not feel the appealof a dog's affection in the same degree, and with me it is as strongas anything I know. Trenar in his devotion was exceptional, and notto have been with him when he was sick--I simply can't think of it. Ididn't do anything that I should have with him. It was wrong toleave him. I love dogs and Trenar was something very special. Ididn't do what I should with him and in every way I am perfectlymiserable about it, but it is useless of it--that is all. I know youfeel sorry for the way I feel, but how I feel you can't know and itmust seem out of place to you. Anyway I feel it and I reproachmyself. I just wish I could have been with him. I will never forgethis attachment--dear little Trenar. "

St. Petersburg 1906. 

"But I don't suppose you can conceive how I feel the autocracy, theEmperor. I don't care what I think; I feel autocracy and the Emperorsimply not a human being to me. I read this and thought you wouldlike it: 'Sow an act and you reap habit; sow a habit and you reap acharacter; sow a character and you reap a destiny. '"

St. Petersburg 1906. 

"For the last two weeks I have been all the time on duty with theoperated cases. This last week I was on night duty every night exceptlast night when I had to sleep to be on duty today. I am so tired offussing with myself; it makes me so angry not to be a perfectmachine. The things to do are all the same--the way to be is thesame, and yet there is so much thinking, choosing, deciding, worrying. So few things matter, and so much should not have amoment's consideration. Nine tenths of all the shacklingconsiderations should simply never rise to consciousness. "

St. Petersburg 1906. 

"On Xmas there was a big tree for all the soldiers who could walk andthen there were a lot of little trees all arranged with presents foreach room where the soldiers could not leave their beds. It was saidin the morning that nothing would be done on Xmas--no dressings, nothing, and I never worked so hard! As there were no dressings inthe operating room I had to do quite a number somehow or other inbed, and then it was my day to keep the ward in the afternoon. "

St. Petersburg 1906. 

"I am beginning to think that the 'esprit' of the sisters here, thatis most of them, is far too liberal. I get perfectly outdone with thepapers some of the sisters bring into the ward, and I quickly layhands upon everyone I find. There is no stemming the tide but I shalldo what I can wherever I am, for it is too stupid. The soldiers aretoo uneducated. "

"You say in your letter that you understand that my father's countryshould be dear to me and yet you think that my mother's country mightalso mean something. What I feel, understand and see in America doesnot mean anything. I cannot feel as they do. What I care for most inthe world is you and Pats--that does not need to be said. As acountry, for ideas, general point of view, etc. Etc. , Russia andRussians are more sympathetic and comprehensible. It is so different. But that is as far as country goes. The real tie, as I said before, is you and Pats. "

Finally after a stay of over two years in Russia, Nelka started backfor America. But she took a round about way this time traveling firstthrough Russia to the Crimea and from there by boat. 

Written on the train between Kharkoff and Sebastopol 1907. 

"I am on my way to the Crimea--and then continue by boat to Naples. Iexpect to get to Paris by the 12th or 15th and to sail at the end ofthe month. What a place Moscow is. O, it is so beautiful--so old andreal Russia, so solid and so unforeign. It was fearfully cold but Iwas out all the time and only had my nose frozen once. I hate, loathand detest every foreign influence in Russia and every evidence thatthere is a world outside. The Kremlin is certainly thorough in itselfand I love it. I am palpitating at the thought of seeing you so soon. It seems to me I am just living in gulps. I feel somehow that theprivileges I have had ought to be put to something now. How will Ieven put my whole self into one thing? Everything has splendidpossibilities but it is always the fearful alternative and itspossibilities. Anyway I have stopped waiting. I know there is nothingto wait for. I can hardly believe that I have had this year--that Ihave been in Russia and that it is done. Baroness Ixkull tried tokeep me to send me to the famine--but the famine will have to wait. Ishall be so glad to get to Yalta. My head is so tired and I shall beable to clear up my thoughts--I can hardly write. My head is poppingoff and my hand is cold and the train shakes. Always your old Nelka. "

(29 years old)

But back in America she once again was restless. Social life had noappeal for her. There was something much more genuine in Russia oreven in Europe--something much more alive, much less artificial. Heraunt Martha Wadsworth tried to interest her in other things, take hermind off the brooding dissatisfaction which Nelka was showing. 

In 1910 General Oliver, then Secretary of War, and a personal friendof Mrs. Wadsworth, decided to undertake a reconnaissance trip throughNew Mexico, Arizona and Utah, partly to do some surveying and mappingof the area and partly to test a compressed fodder for horsesinvented by Captain Shiverick, also a friend of Mrs. Wadsworth. 

General Oliver invited Mrs. Wadsworth to take the trip with him andshe in turn asked Nelka to come along. 

This was a most unusual, interesting and difficult trip, especiallyfor women. It lasted six weeks. The first three weeks General Olivertook part in the trip with a whole squadron of cavalry. Then he leftand the rest of the three weeks only a small party continued throughthe Navajo Indian Reservation to the Rainbow Bridge in Utah. Thisparty consisted of only two officers, several enlisted men, oneIndian guide, Nelka and her aunt. All on horseback and pack mulescarrying supplies. They covered unmapped territory over the mostrough and difficult terrain, which often was dangerous. Even onehorse was lost when it fell over a cliff and had to be shot becauseof injuries. They slept on the ground, froze during the cold nightswhile the heat of the day was always around a hundred, and on oneoccasion reached 139 degrees. A great many very interesting pictureswere taken during this trip. Nelka always remained under the spell ofthis trip and the beauty of the untouched wilderness, but at the sametime had some unpleasant impressions of the awesome country. Also itlasted longer than she had expected and she was anxious to get home. Only that year her aunt Martha had given Nelka a poodle puppy, Tibi, which Nelka left with her aunt Susie in Cazenovia. She was worriedabout the puppy all during her trip. 

Incidentally, this Tibi played a very important, and sad role in thelife of Nelka. The dog, because she was always with Nelka and becauseof this close relationship, developed a very high degree ofunderstanding and companionship with Nelka. This mutual understandingresulted in a very deep attachment between Nelka and Tibi, and Nelkacertainly developed a very unusual love for this Tibi, whom shealways took with her back and forth between Europe and America andkept always with her--except on the occasions when she was obliged toleave her for short periods. I knew Tibi for she also had been leftby Nelka with me and my mother in the country on one or two occasionswhen I took care of her. 

Here are some of the impressions that Nelka gathered from thiswestern trip and which she gave in her letters to her aunt Susie:

Utah 1910. 

"The Navajo Mountains and the Natural Bridge were, to me, terrible. Ican never give you a complete description of it, but, aside from theother difficulties and trials, it impressed one as the most godlessplace conceivable. I don't see how anyone can keep any religion inthe canyon in which the bridge is--such a mass of turbulent, ruthlessrock, all dark red--hopeless, shapeless chaos. It all looked just asif there had been a smash up yesterday. No beyond, no nothing, nothing alive, nothing dead, every step of the way almost impassableand the feeling that every minute more rock could come smashing down. On the way there Mr. Whiterill, our guide, fell over with his horsewhen it was impossible to keep balance. He got loose, the horse fellover backwards several times, broke its neck, slid down sheer rockand fell about 50 feet over a cliff, the sound was awful. "

"Mr. Heidekooper and I went down to the bottom of the canyon and layback on the rocks with our feet in a pool. I closed my eyes and triedto forget these crushing walls. "

"There was a question of moving the sleeping blankets to get out of ascorpion patch, but we finally stayed where we were. I refused tomount my horse firmly and flatly until we got out of the worst partof the canyon, so I walked 12 miles when I had to pick every step onsharp stones. On the way back, Pat's horse went head over heels downanother steep place but was not killed. Still a few miles further myhorse slipped going over a huge mass of rock as smooth as an egg andabout the same shape and everyone thought he was about to be hurledto instant death, when by a miracle he screwed around, got himself upand caught his footing again. My mental agony had been so great thatI had not a bodily sensation. I took my blanket, rolled up in it andwent to sleep by some trees under some branches and a log. We cameover the rocks where one misstep would have sent the horses to thebottom. No place even to spread his four feet before the next step. My heart was in my mouth most of the time. I don't know whatimpression you might get from my letter. I have seen the mostbeautiful sunsets, but there are more essential elements than theseto live in peace and the limits of what I can do now are very marked. I am wound up to the last degree. There are lovely Indians here. "

Kianis Canyon 1910. 

"We arrived here in the rain; the pack train with the lunch milesbehind and a waste of thistles to sit on, but it cleared up soonafter and everything got settled. There are two very nice dogsalong--Kobis and Terry. Terry belongs to Mr. S. And has his earscut to the roots. I need not insist upon what I feel for both thedog and the man. "

Canion de Chelley, August 1910. 

"This country is too wonderful for words. It is the place--the onlyway to live. I wish you could see it and I wish you loved it as I do. Won't you bring Tibi and the boys and stay here? Oh, Oh, there isnothing to say. "

Gonado 1910. 

"I get up at 5 and see the sunrise and generally take the things inbefore everything gets astir. We have breakfast at 6, 6:30 and startour marches at 7. It was so cold one night I got up at 4:30 and madeup the camp fire. My face is dark brick and painful but I think I hadtoo much cold cream fry and I have stopped. The heat of the sun isgreat. Wednesday we crossed the 'Painted Desert' which was even morebeautiful than the canion and camped at a kind of oasis on a littlelake and were able to have a swim--though the desert was full ofrattle snakes and the lake full of lizards. "

"I walked off and got lost almost 4 hours. They had the whole troopout looking for me, and the trumpeters blowing for over an hour. There was no moon and I had decided to spend the night where I was bya cactus, when I saw a light in the dim distance and finally CaptainMcCoy found me. It gave me a vivid sense of how misleading theflatness of the desert can be. When Captain McCoy found me he couldnot see me ten feet away and I think it was chiefly the white dog hehad with him that found me. I had had to take off both shoes andstockings about two hours before as the mud was so heavy I could notraise my feet and it was raining part of the time. Every place wherethe Indians live in their natural mud huts it is clean andinoffensive. As soon as there is a sign of a real house, or what youcall civilization, there is dirt, smells, refuse heaps and flies--andof all the sights in my life, bar none, the washstand in Mr. Hubble'sstore, with wet newspaper, stagnant slop jar, dirty tooth brush, filthy basin, sloppy soap--all humming with flies--is the worst Ihave ever seen and the most stomach turning. There is some freak fromBoston in a checkered suit and goggles who walks around with someideas for Indian betterment. I think they have reached the highestpitch in the fact that they do not scalp him! I had coffee, oatmealand bacon all out of one bowl. I drink water that looks like beansoup and never use a fork and a spoon at the same meal. Sand andcinders or charcoal flavor everything, and I have fished olives outof the sand where they had fallen and eaten them with perfectsatisfaction. Materially this certainly is the way to live. Spiritually some shifting might improve it. "

Back from the trip and into civilization, Nelka again was restlessand discontented with her surroundings. Again she longed for Europeand especially Russia. 

Her little dog Tibi became of primary importance in Nelka's life. Despite her love for animals, Nelka admits that up to that time shehad no special attachment or deep affection for dogs. Dogs were justsomething you had around you; they were part of everyday life, butthat was about all. But with Tibi, Nelka's affection for her grew andgrew, and they became unusually attached to each other. Like all dogswho are constantly with a person, they develop a great maturity andintelligence. Tibi did just that. She was a very highly developedanimal, as I remember her well. 

The winter of 1910-1911 Nelka spent again with her aunt Martha inWashington. Her aunt had a large house and was in the social whirl ofthe capital. Dinners, balls, the White House, the Embassies--but allthis meant little to Nelka and she felt the futility of all thatactivity, its artificiality and uselessness. Irritated and longingfor a change she once again returned to Russia, and once again wentback to the Kaufman community. 

Her feeling for dogs and animals in general was becoming more andmore pronounced--thanks in part to her close association with Tibi. In one of her letters to her aunt Susie written in 1911, she writes:

St. Petersburg 1911. 

"I do not love humanity in the mass. I don't admire it. I feel sorryfor the unenlightened and suffering but I think there are only a fewin the world who 'vindicate, ' as Uncle Herbert says, their right toexist. If there was for one moment in my heart what I feel for dogs, cats, horses and animals in general, I would be a real sister ofcharity. It is a perfectly distinct expansion and impulse and a reallonging to help and joy in it that I do not feel in the face ofsuffering humanity. You can explain it any way. If all these cripplednumberless that I have seen all these days had been maimed dogs, Idon't know what I would have done. There is something in human naturethat is so contemptible and poor that I can't feel the same way. "

St. Petersburg 1911. 

"How can you keep your faith in humanity? I think it is all so weakand not beautiful, and life as it goes somehow such an outrageousfizzle. Why are there such beautiful things, conceptions, possibilities only to be ruined by fatal microbes this humannature puts into it? Life only in yearning; Death to crownrealization; peace only in oblivion. What for? And even the power ofrenounciation has to be fought for. "

She was working at that time in the Kaufman community but was to goto Montenegro for a hospital reorganization. This did not come about. She wrote:

St. Petersburg 1911. 

"I am undergoing the greatest disappointment at this moment. I was tobe sent to Montenegro to establish a Red Cross sisterhood andoverhaul the hospital, and to be given five sisters to take with me Ias the head--so interesting--and in the part of the world which hasalways attracted me to the utmost, ever since I was in Sofia. Andafter it was all arranged and I was simply reveling in every detail, Baroness Ixkull decided that it was simply impossible to take Tibi. "

St. Petersburg 1911. 

"One doesn't love anything any more, religion, country, art. The onlything is to have one's interest outside of oneself--and to be verybusy. I can hardly believe, at least I wonder, at myself being ableto do so many things I dislike--getting up every day so early, nowalks with Tibi, sleeping between five and six hours, often onlyfour, and yet I enjoy everything--ice cream is a festival, a momentto sew a treat, and bed heaven. "

"But oh, all these sick people--so depressing and gives one such animpression of superfluity of the human species. Everything, everything so beautiful except humanity--and not only manhimself--dirty and unenchanting--but the instrument of hideousnessall around. "

Again Nelka was showing the restlessness because of the attachmentsto the two sides of the ocean--Russia and America--and theimpossibility to satisfy entirely one or the other, or both. FromRussia she wrote:

St. Petersburg 1911. 

"I wish I could be in America and eliminate from my personal horizonthe people and things which make me boil over in spite of myself. Dear Poodie, I wish you could really know what I feel and mean. Ithink if in recent years you had been in contact with the peace andsimplicity of Europe in general, you would see what makes me shrivelwith most Americans, because I am not above and beyond it as you are. America may stand for freedom, but it has an unimancipated soul andthere is a perpetual affectation, a caution, a suspicion, a lack ofindependence that does simply petrify life and crush feeling. You maysay it is a small world, I don't know, but it is everywhere I meet. "

St. Petersburg 1911. 

"I have at last decided that my life must remain unsettled, undecided; it is too late to settle it except by sheer will, and thatis too stupid. Real ties exist in different centers--one must obeyboth; it is utterly indifferent to me what external aspect my lifetakes, because it is also too late. "

(She was then 32 years old)

St. Petersburg 1911. 

"I hope to be in America at intervals and often. You and Pats aremore to me than anything else and I have the greatest love forPoodihaven (Cazenovia), but I cannot associate with outsiderssufficiently to fill my life. I want to beat them all and I don'twant to hear them talk. "

At this time, I think, she was going through a very difficult periodof uncertainty in her life, which is reflected in her letters writtenat that time:

"If I did not care for Americans and if I did not have a great dealof sentiment and associations, ties and memories in America, it wouldbe so easy to leave it alone and not think about it. But I know I amboth. I know how strongly attached I am to both sides and I onlydeplore the difference among people in the world. But when I think ofeven those others that I care for, I know that we are strangers. Myheart does not beat with any puritanical sentiment--so there. If Iam attracted to some puritanical offspring--some representative ofthe progressing (?) new world, it is like being in love with a marblestatue. "

"I don't know why I write all this, but how impossible life is. Ithink it really is a most devilish arrangement. No peace except inutter renounciation. And must one struggle through a peppery sequenceof years just to know this?"

"Baroness Ixkull is going to give me perfectly new sisters to trainand I am going to make them march like pokers, copy every record eachtime they make a spot and count all the linen every two weeks. Asthey will not have been in any other ward, they cannot make anycomparisons or complain. "

"I know, Poodie, that you would like some things here very much--thesimplicity of everything and the independence of people. I think itis only possible with a recognized aristocracy when people do nothave to explain themselves and are established. I have met a few suchnice people, of course to hardly know them, but one feels one knowsthem at once because there is a recognition of being of one world andone knows beforehand that one shares the same feelings towards mostthings. For instance, they may not know me personally but the factthat Papa was in the service, was Gentillomme de la Chambre (Courttitle), was educated at the Lycee, defines a type, defines in acertain manner his daughter, if only externally. Then knowing thatMama was American, the whole thing is clear in a natural way. Mywanting to be here is understood--my attachment to America isunderstood. "

St. Petersburg 1911. 

"My life here is so full in one sense that it seems much more than afew months since I was in America. Life seems very, very short incomparison with the wide conception of possibilities which gives thezest to youth. Everything seems so partial and the total is so hardto realize. To keep tranquility with the increase of perception andunderstanding means renounciation as far as I can see. It must be agreat privilege to work and pursue one's greatest convictions--to actwhat one feels sure of--this is in many ways adjustment tocircumstances. Please God that there may be some good in it. "

"The spirit is everything--nothing else matters. I can never leavethe ward on their hands (new sisters) and I mean every day from 8until 9 at night and often part of the night, if it is very serious. I am very well, sleep little, eat little and am flourishing. "

So after this additional stage in Russia at the Community, Nelkareturned once again to America, but not for very long. Early in 1912she was again getting ready to go back to Europe. Writing fromAshantee in 1912 she said:

"I know it is unrest--I know it all--yet the true picture is that ofgoing thousands of miles to where I am not needed, and leaving my twobest friends. I long for the work and can't wait. Between now and it, just think what bumps and jolts and frights and moans. Oh, what is itall about?"

Nelka spent that winter with her aunt Martha in Washington. It hadbeen a winter entirely filled with social activities--balls, dinners, the White House, the Embassies--and Nelka could not stand it anylonger and was seeking some contrast. She certainly achieved thecontrast all right, for as soon as she returned to Russia she wassent to the outskirts of the Oural Mountains. In that region a faminehad been quite severe and the Government sent out feeding stationsand Red Cross units to take care of the stricken people. Sisters wereestablished in different villages, sometimes entirely isolated, wherethey issued provisions and gave medical care to the peasants. Nelkaspent a whole winter in one of these villages, living in a one-roomhut with a peasant family and sleeping on a wooden bench. What acontrast after the social life of Washington!

Here is a descriptive letter written from Kalakshinovka, District ofSamara, in 1912:

"I am in a desert of snow, in quiet and peace, and feeding threevillages. I lie on my bed which consists of two wooden benches sideby side--one a little higher than the other. Only thing is that itis almost inaccessible. Even with the snow it is more roily and bumpythan the worst sea ever dreamed of being, and all one can do is tolie with one's eyes closed on some straw in the kind of low sleighthat bumps along hour after hour over these steppes. I first went toSapieva, a tartar village in the District of Bougulma. Now I amsettled and hope to stay here. I was busy last night late giving outprovisions and weighing flour and today I have been trying tostraighten out grievances and see that all receive justly--sometimesvery complicated. Some brother of the official writer of the village, quarreled with the son of a poor woman when that woman's cow came toonear his premises, and he made his son beat her off. My position inthe matter is whatever the pro's and con's--how dare anyone hurt apoor famished cow and I am settling it on that line. "

"I don't know what I would not do to feed all the poor cows andhorses and sheep that are left. A number of friends in Petersburggave me some money to distribute--a little over a hundred dollars. Igave about 50 in Sapieva and the rest I am going to use to save theanimals. Aside from my pity for them, it will be terrible for thepeasants not to have a horse to work in the fields as soon as thewarm weather comes. Where will they be next year? I can help at leasttwo or three families. One poor woman when I bought some feed for herhorse and cow simply fell on her knees on the ground. Poodie, reallyhow far people live from each other and how little one can dream ofthis life if one has not been in it. Perhaps other people understandthings more or realize more, but with all I have seen and heardand read, that is simply being born to something entirelyunknown--besides all the feelings one experiences oneself in beingthus shut off from everything. I have at last attained my own bowland spoon. I drink coffee and eat a piece of black bread in themorning. At 12 a bowl of buckwheat or some kind of grain with awooden spoon--a glass of tea and at night a glass of cocoa and blackbread, or as a treat a dish of sour milk. I cook and iron and doeverything myself, but it is very simple. "

"This is part of 'Little Russia' and is much cleaner than 'GreatRussia. ' I brought with me a few fleas from Great Russia and have thegreatest sympathy for Tibi for the time she was exposed to fleacompanionship. How they bite and jump. "

"The Tartars were so clean--the very poorest and none of the disorderthat one sees in Great Russia. There is something absolutelydistinctive about the Tartars and one feels a certain civilizationand settledness that is different from all the other villages I haveseen. Did I tell you how we all slept in a row with the old tartarand his wife and child?"

"Though I was doing my best to master the tartar tongue, I canconverse more readily here. The Little Russian dialect is verydifferent from Russian but one can get a long. The Red Cross willprobably be stationed here throughout the famine--until the 'NewBread, ' that is about the end of July--but Baroness Ixkull promisedto replace me as soon as she could get another sister. I hope to getback to America in July. "

Kalakshinovka 1912. 

"A peasant walked in today and brought me a present--an apple aboutthe size of a plum. I wanted to keep it until Easter but we consultedand decided it would dry up, so I ate it. It is getting late--8o'clock and the candle is burning low. "

Kalakshinovka 1912. 

"The days have fallen into a routine. I distribute provisions, go tosee the peasants and they come to see me--sew, mend, scrape mud offof boots and at last have a little time to write a few letters. Inabout a week I hope to go to Alekseievka, a village about 9 milesoff, which is quite a center. There is a fair there every week and Ishall buy some sugar and a little white flour and perhaps if it canbe found, a piece of ham. I am getting awfully hungry. People willnever get anywhere while taste is undeveloped and perception so dulland imagination so weak. I don't think all people can be taught tounderstand, but I do believe that the eye can be trained and theimagination led into paths which will make them revolt from ugliness, and that is a tremendous step towards salvation. It seems to me that'conditional immortality' is the only possible and plausibledoctrine. So much of humanity, whatever it looks like or howevercannily it has devised to exist, has not begun, and why have such arespect for numbers? I should like to weed out acquaintances just asI attack occasionally the linen closet--with fire, and have a chanceto breathe. It is all the unborn who sit around and choke theatmosphere. "

Kalakshinovka 1912. 

"All the horror of the famine is being realized right now. I will notwrite you about it for it is too terrible and heartbreaking--it isthe horses, camels, cows and sheep--worst of all the horses. I willnever forget yesterday as long as I live. I cried all day, I couldnot sleep all night. It is simply horrible. I have never so muchrealized the problem of existence as here. Everything is so foreignand so striking, one is simply faced by the question of how to liveand to what end. What I feel more strongly than anything is that theproduct of the best education and civilization should be good andzealous--more near the saint--than that the masses should read orwrite. I have faith enough that all will attain in the end if thetype that leads is worthwhile, but the type that leads is not. "

Kalaskshinovka 1912. 

"I have a whole little house now. The owner comes and cleans up; Ibolt my door and I have a place to keep provisions for almost 900people. The whole thing is just as interesting as it can be. I wentnot long ago to a village of Bashkirs to verify scorbutous andtyphoid--about 15 miles from here; it is strange how entirelydifferent they are. The Tartars seem the most settled and grown upand independent, and the Little Russians have more traditions. TheGreat Russians are more individual and less distinctive. You can'timagine the nice feeling of riding right out over the steppes, nofuss, no get up, with a purpose. The feeling that at the same timewith the wild freedom of it that one is accomplishing something andworking. I can't wait to see you. When I get my Tibi and start againacross the seas, I shall be even glad to see that awful Libertylady!"

Kalaskshinovka 1912. 

"Your letter enclosing Pata's and the picture of Lutie was the rewardof a walk of six to seven miles with a ton of mud on each boot, anight on the floor and a return at dawn on a rickety horse horseback. Everything is flourishing here, plenty of occasion for meditation andconsideration. I enjoy tremendously the peasants' bath house. One canclimb higher and higher and lie on shelves in different stages ofheat. I got so steamed up I wanted at one moment to open the door andjust fly out into the field without a stitch. When I look out on theplains here and then think of New York and the subway, my brainsimply stops. This is about as small and poor a village as exists, yet there is a teacher and all the younger generation read and write, and the Tartars are really wise owls. I have no more desire to go toPersia. I am afraid that country is done for. I think Arizona is assafe as anywhere if they don't irrigate. Still those mission teachersare a pest. There is something fundamentally wrong with everything Iknow!"

Hardly had this episode of the famine finished, that the Red Crosssent units to Belgorod in the Ukrania where there was a greatconcentration of pilgrims for the canonization of St. Josephat. TheGovernment once again set up feeding stations and hospital units totake care of the sick and aged and all emergencies arising from theconcentration of many thousands of pilgrims. Once again Nelka wasthere and it was of great interest to her. 

During all of these absences Nelka kept her little dog Tibi eitherwith us in the country or with friends in Kasan, the Krapotkins. Shewent to pick up Tibi in Kasan from where she wrote in 1913. 

"I caught some horrible microbe just before I arrived and had aterrible grippy cold which kept me in the house and in bed--but it isover now. I feel rejuvenated 15 years and full of energy. I almostbelieve it is climatic. The feeling is so different. Isn't it awfulabout the priest being hung in Adrianople? I don't see how the wholeof Europe doesn't stand together to drive the Turks out of Christiancountries. "

(This was written just before the start of the Balkan war. )

Nelka returned to St. Petersburg and made preparations to leave forthe Balkans. The Russian Red Cross was sending out units to theBulgarian Army. After returning from Kasan, Nelka stayed for a whileat my mother's place in the country. This was a time when I waspreparing for my entry examinations to the Lycee and she wrote aboutthat to her aunt, who was interested in everything pertaining toeducation. 

Writing from Poustinka (our country estate) in 1913:

"I am very much hopped up and stirred up and feel very full of life. I had a very pleasant short stay in Kasan. Enjoyed seeing people verymuch--so much youth I have not seen for ages--young people, youngofficers, young marriages, and then such delightful old people. Theyoung officers were just simply waiting for mobilization. About war, everything is most uncertain. Half the people say it will beimmediately, the other half that it will be avoided--no one can tellanything. I am going to Adrianople Tuesday. Baroness Ixkull is therewith a large division and I think that just now there will be more todo than ever. I go first to Sofia. "

"Yesterday I went with Veta (my mother) and Max to town. We came backin the evening and after dinner I had a most delicious sleep on thesofa by the fire--Max waking me up every few minutes. "

"This afternoon I had a fine nap and then gave Max an Englishdictation. He is preparing for his examinations for the Lycee. Reallyit seems a great deal. Besides all the usual subjects, he has to takeGrammar and Composition in Russian, Latin, German, French, andEnglish. Ancient History, European History and Russian Historyseparately, besides Religion. An awful lot, and all the other things. None of the languages are optional and in two years he has to beexamined in the literature of each. "

"He is such a nice boy, 15 years, so boyish and yet so developed andsuch a lot of casual culture, just from association with culturedpeople--and yet a real country boy, loving the affairs of the estateand everything to do with the place, and full of fun and mischief. Iam all for education at home until the final years for boys, andaltogether for girls--I think it is more developing. "

After this stay with us, she left for Sofia and the war. 

Sofia 1913. 

"General Tirtoff sent me a 'laisser passee' and a certificate so thatI can't be taken prisoner, and I expect to arrive to where we havethe tents in 2 or 3 days. General Tirtoff, under whose orders I am, proposed yesterday to send me as head of a hospital which is nowstationed in Servia, but which has to be sent to Duratzo where therehas been a big battle. It will be a tremendous lot of transportationand, though very interesting, I don't know if I should like it asmuch as a small field hospital like Adrianople. Any way it alldepends on what happens at Adrianople. "

Sofia 1912. 

"I have just come from the Queen. She was ill and could not receiveme before. She was very, very nice--much nicer than I expected andbetter looking than her pictures. It is now 3 A. M. , and I am to getup at six. "

Nelka joined the division of sisters at Adrianople and took part inthe fighting to take that city. This probably was much the mostdifficult and dangerous time she ever encountered. They were workingin the very front lines, in the mud and dirt and under heavy shellfire. At one time when the shells were falling both in front andbehind their tents, and it was impossible to move the wounded, Nelkarealized that perhaps she would not come out alive. She wrote severalshort goodbye notes, one of which was written to my mother, which Ireproduce here. I am grateful to think that at that critical momentshe remembered me. 

Kara Youssouff. 29 February 1913. 

"Dearest Veta:We are under fire--the projectiles are going over our heads, one justfell on the other side of our tents, and the ground is torn up beforeour eyes. Perhaps we may miraculously escape--if not, goodbye. Perhaps some one may pick this up and send it. I send you much, muchlove--give my love to my friends in Petersburg, it is terrible forthe poor wounded. Love to Max. Nelka. "

Here is a letter from Aunt Susie Blow to Nelka in 1913:

"Nothing I can say suggests what I feel. The picture of you withthose awful bombs bursting above you, before you, to right and leftof you and the other picture of you plunging knee deep in mud andbattling with mud and rain, as you made your way from tent to tentwill never leave me. And what pictures of horror must move in ghastlyprocession in your mind. You have always wanted first handexperience. Now you have had such experience of famine, of war, ofreligious enthusiasm, of patriotic devotion. How will it all affectthe necessary routine of life?"

Sofia 1913. 

"I know I have written since the fall of Adrianople and I think Isent you a word from there. Did I tell you that the Consulate was inseveral places shattered by shells? What I noticed the most was theair of proprietorship of the soldiers in the town and how one feltthe immediate transformation of the Turkish town into a Bulgarianone. "

Sofia 1913. 

"I do not know what I think about the Turks. I only know that I abhorthe 'Young Turks' (political party). In general I suppose they aremore civilized than the Bulgars. I do not care for them as a nation, but I wish nevertheless that the war would continue until they get tothe very door of Constantinople. About occupying the city itself I donot know, because it is so complicated. Of course I wish it mightbelong to one of the Balkan states and I simply can't endure themixing in of 'powers. ' Powers--by what I would like to know, exceptsize and force alone. I wish they would fight it out and takeConstantinople and be done with it and the whole Balkan peninsula aswell. I hate threats and tyranny based on the power to destroy ifthey want. Either gobble it up or leave it alone, but not dictate!!!"

"It is very strange, but it seems to me that everything that makesfor terrestrial power makes for spiritual defeat. "

"I am crazy to go to Tchatalja but a definite attack does not seemimminent. "

"I am well and, as result of feeding on air and no sleep, had to movethe buttons of my apron which had become tight. I can speak quite alittle Bulgarian. "

"I understand fully what is meant by 'A la Guerre, comme a LaGuerre. ' It is extraordinary how every preconceived notion and habitis thrown to the winds. I like it very much. Everyone acts as theimmediate occasion seems to necessitate and it is so much moresimple. Everything is changed and I see that it is just so everywherein time of war because one thing is so very much more important thanall the rest. It is when nothing is supremely important that life issimply impossible and that you are baffled at every step. "

"It was terrible in many ways. Those first days at Kara Youssouff, but I feel it was the greatest privilege to be there. One felthelpless before such a demand but it was all so real and every breathmeant so much. "

Once finished with the Balkan war, Nelka returned to America andjoined her aunts. 

Before leaving she spent several days with my mother and me in ourcountry place. After she left my mother wrote to Nelka:

"Max and I miss you very much. I was so happy to have you with us fora time; your visits are always so nice and cheerful. I alwaysremember them with so much pleasure. We had a long talk with Maxabout you and decided you were a real friend for us and Max said: 'wemust always be real friends to her. ' He is very fond of you. "

(I was then 16 years old and very much in love with Nelka. )

Once finished with the Balkan war, Nelka returned again to Americaand joined her aunt Martha in Washington. 

She brought Tibi back with her and here a tragic event took placewhich had a decisive influence on both Nelka's and my life. 

While in Washington Tibi somehow got hold of rat poison and despitethe help of the best veterinarian and also the help of two humandoctors who were friends of Nelka, Tibi died. 

Nelka took the death of her mother in a most tragic and painful way, but the death of Tibi affected her to a much greater degree. Hergrief was beyond all comprehension and she went into a state of utterdespair, verging on the frantic. Her Aunt Susie and a few friendstried to help her as much as they could but absolutely nothing seemedto help. 

Just before she had left Russia, Princess Wasilchikoff had asked herto assume the reorganization of a sister community and hospital inKovno, a fortress-town near the German border. Nelka did not acceptthe offer though it was of considerable interest to her, because shewas then returning to America and had plans to stay with her aunts. But when her little dog died, she quickly changed her mind andtelegraphed Princess Wasilchikoff that she was ready to accept herproposition. This she did primarily to try and get her mind focusedon something and to get it off the brooding about Tibi. Her grief anddespair can be judged from the various letters which she wrote to heraunt at that time, and for a long time to come. 

Ashantee 1913. 

"If that cannot be done I want to be buried in unconsecrated groundwith Tibi and shall arrange for it. I cannot leave Tibi where she isburied and not know what will happen later. "

"I hope when I die to know that it will be alright but I cannot getany nearer to being reconciled now, and it just comes over me with afresh feeling all the time, that I cannot accept it. I have neverfelt so about anything. I am glad that you miss darling little Tibi. I feel estranged from everyone except those who knew and cared forTibi. "

During her trip back to Europe, she wrote from Rotterdam 1913. 

"It just seems some times more than I can bear. I don't know how toget reconciled--that is the worst. I don't accept it and I have anoutraged sense all the time of the fearful crime to that happy littlelife, and so many constant torments come up afresh all the time, thatI just feel crazy. I tried to face it all and wear it out of my headin the beginning, but that did not work and now this willful keepingfrom thinking as much as I can does not help either. Why couldn'tanything have happened to me that would not have hurt Tibi? I sufferbecause that little face is just always before me. If I could justhave her for an hour and know that she was all right, I would die thehappiest person in the world. "

Paris 1913. 

"I can't keep up my spirits all the time. I am terribly tired, look aperfect sight, but I don't care. Paris has not changed much. It willalways be the most beautiful city in the world, I think, and the mostcivilized. Church was such a delight this morning. I like this Parisone better than anyone I know, but it all now seems simply a past andI know it will always be so. "

Poustinka 1913. 

"It seems to me almost superfluous to comment any more on the sadnessand pain of what occurred--it is also just more and more andeverywhere. The more one sees of life, the more frightened one is ofbeing happy. I think life is just totally and absolutelyinexplicable. "

"Veta has got a little apartment opposite the Lycee and Max hopes toget in January. I am giving him English dictations and he is studyingall day. Veta thinks of nothing else and wants to get him safelymarried at 21, which she thinks is the best thing for Russian men. "

Well, I was safely married at 21 but not with the approval of mymother who opposed my marriage to Nelka because of our agedifference. 

Poustinka 1913. 

"I have not yet seen about the cemetery here but I think I willarrange to be buried there if it is allowed, or else to find somepiece of land somewhere. I just hope, hope, hope in something beyondas I never have before. I simply can't stand the injustice of Tibi, of her death and I can never get reconciled to it for a minute. "

And a year later she wrote from Kovno in 1914:

"The approach of this anniversary has been taking me, despite ofmyself, over every minute of those dreadful, dreadful days a yearago. I don't want to speak of it all to you or make you feel any morethan I have already the weight of a grief that will never leaveme--but I do want to tell you that I shall also never forget how goodyou were to me and how you helped me through that simply fearfulnight. I don't know how anything could be any worse but still if youhad not been there I don't know what I would have done--and I shallalways remember and be glad that Tibi died not far from you. "

I think unquestionably the loss of Tibi was the greatest sufferingthat Nelka ever experienced in her life, even though the loss of hermother and of her aunts was a great shock each time and deep griefwhich held on for a long time. But there was something about thedeath of this little dog which hurt Nelka more than anything else. While in later years she never hardly spoke about it, I think thepain always remained. 

Nelka was a great believer in 'circumstances' in life. The death ofTibi was a 'circumstance' which affected Nelka's life and mine aswell. Had Tibi not died as she did then, Nelka would not havereturned that year to Russia. By returning to Russia in 1913 andthen the war breaking out the next year, she was prevented fromreturning to America and thus never again saw her Aunt Susie, whodied without her in 1916, while Nelka was at the front. She thenstayed on through the war and then the Revolution, and we weremarried in 1918. Had Tibi not died, all the conditions would havebeen different and very likely we would not have been married, atleast this is possible. I think both she and I have been believers in'circumstances. ' I know that I am. Circumstances which affect all ourlife. Sometimes one small event, something so insignificant that itis hardly noticed, can bring about a chain of events which entirelyand basically change the whole course of one's life. This is what Ithink the death of Tibi did to the lives of both Nelka and me. 

When Nelka came back to Russia in 1913 she undertook thereorganization job offered by Princess Wasilchikoff. Nelka felt itwould help her forget and would act as a relief valve for herfeelings. Princess Wasilchikoff offered Nelka complete freedom andindependence of action and decision in all concerning the sistercommunity and the hospital. She could act and do as she wished anddesired. So Nelka agreed with the stipulation that she wouldundertake this job for one year, and having made her arrangementsleft for Kovno. The whole picture of the Kovno enterprise is veryvividly seen from a number of letters written by Nelka during 1914. 

Kovno 1913. 

"I think life is a great mystery and thus far renounciation seems tome the only achievement. "

Kovno 1914. 

"Kovno is a little different from what I expected. It is much more ofa hospital than I thought but it is to be completely made over. It isnow for 50 beds and a separate house for eye illnesses with two wardsin it. There are 40 sisters and 18 servants. "

"Two hours after I arrived I attacked their hair (the sisters), andnow it is as flat as paper on the wall. I also berated a doctorwithin the first 24 hours for not appearing for his lecture. Ithought I better acquire the habit of discipline at once for theposition is rather appalling and I am trying my best to imposeterror. When I feel the terror getting rooted, I will try for alittle affection and good will. "

"I am now racking my brains how to get 180 dresses and aprons made byEaster and keep within the limit for cost. "

"I am preparing different and complete charts for all the wards and alaboratory is to be opened in a month. The planning is not the mostdifficult; it is arranging things within given conditions and in acertain sense in a margin, and appeasing demands and complaints fromall sides. The new division of the work was very complicated, too. Inone ward, every sister, who was ordered to it either wept, flatlyrefused or prepared to lose everything and leave on account of thenature of the sister at the head of it. Of course I had to insist onacceptance of the distribution of service, on principle, but I amglad to have found good reason to get rid of the said sister, intime. Finally the young sister who has to go there now, and whoreiterated for days that she would rather wash dishes for the rest ofher days than go there, after a frank talk of half an hour, said shewould, and that I wouldn't hear another word from her. I was reducedto real tears of gratitude and admiration for the effort. "

Kovno 1914. 

"My head I know is not as strong and clear as it was. "

"I have a very nice room which is in the most immaculate orderimaginable--I am never in it. Next to it I have what is called my'chancellery' which has an immense big writing table, another table, three chairs, bells and excellent light and telephone. I spend mostof the time in it when I am not going the rounds on a rampage. Ilike to know that my food costs only 15 cents a day. "

During some time in 1914 I was very ill in Petersburg. My mother wasat the same time in bed with the flu and unable to take care of me, so in desperation she telegraphed to Nelka in Kovno and Nelka arrivedimmediately. 

Kovno 1914. 

"I spent three days in Petersburg, arriving there finding both Vetaand Max very ill. Max with fever of 104 or more. Max had all kinds ofcomplications afterwards ending in an abscess in the ear. I lookedafter him for three days and nights and then Veta got up. "

Kovno 1914. 

"Every day I live the more insoluble everything seems and the moreconvinced I am of the insolubility of everything. There are lovelythings and tracks in life and humanity, but as a whole the latter isso loathsome and life so sad and dreadful. I feel a terrible fatigueof life and it seems to me that all my energy is simply restless, except the energy to denounce. If I live a hundred years ten timesover I think my feeling of indignation for some things will neverdiminish. "

Always still feeling the loss of Tibi, Nelka did not seem to be ableto get reconciled. She wrote to her aunt:

Kovno 1914. 

"I have just the interest of having begun the thing and wishing tosee it permanently established, as I have started it, but at bottom Idon't care what happens to anything, and I am only thankful I havehad my thoughts arrested momentarily. I had no right to complain ofanything or wish for anything as long as Tibi was alive, and whattorments me most is not my grief but that Tibi should have suffered. I don't understand anything and I only live in hope and helplessness. I can bear the grief of Tibi's death but I cannot get reconciled tothe conditions of it. "

During that winter my mother moved from the country where we wereliving to Petersburg, and Nelka happened to be with us when this tookplace and took part in the moving. Here is some of the description ofthe event:

Kovno 1914. 

"We followed the next day with a dog and a cat. Veta, Max and I withall the baggage, a parrot 'Tommy' and two small birds in separatecages. I tried to look out for all three and froze my fingers offholding one cage and another that I wrapped up in my shawl. And so westarted off in immediate danger of upsetting every minute. A day ortwo before the sleigh with Veta and Max and her sister-in-law and thedriver upset completely in a ditch, horse on his back and toes in theair. "

"Max's examinations were to be in two days so of course we tried tobeat him into a cold corner to study in the midst of the confusion. "

"Of course I took a sympathetic part in all this and did my share byscolding Max almost unremittantly from morning till night. He is avery bright and attractive boy, but easy going. "

(Exactly four years later Nelka married the "easy going boy. ")

Kovno 1914. 

"I would give anything to spend a few hours with you and see how youare and have a nice talk. You don't know how much I realize what arock you are of effective support and comprehension. "

(Nelka never again saw her aunt who died in 1916 while Nelka was atthe front. )

Kovno 1914. 

"I ought never to move from Cazenovia if I had any character. I shallhave learned a lot of things when I die--and all for what?"

Kovno 1914. 

"I suppose I shall die a hopeless procrastinator but if I make smallprogress I also have no peace. It torments me dreadfully to havethings undone. I wish I had passed beyond this world, in my soul. "

Kovno 1914. 

"I realize tremendously how an institution of this kind depends onthe managing head. So much has to be looked after and such constantquestions come up that no system or plan suffices by itself. It isvery hard to get things done quickly without being somewhat impetuousand one cannot preserve control over everything without a greatdeal of calm. I think more than ever that institutional life isperfectly anti-human. It cannot be run without a certain amount ofinjustice--that is the innocent suffering for the guilty, that isif one attempts to have rules. It would be far more just to haveno rules and exact of each one according to my own judgment. I think that regulations are only made in support of idioticadministrations. "

Kovno 1914. 

"Max wrote me such a nice, vivid letter. "

"Politics are certainly very interesting now. I feel dreadfully sorryfor Servia and I hope if there is war with Austria that the lastServian will die on the battlefield. "

In May, June and early July of 1914, Nelka was writing to her AuntSusie about her plans of returning to America. Finally she had madearrangements to sail the first week of August. But then the war brokeout and she never got off. 

Kovno 1914. 

"I have written to the Russian Line and got special permission tosail from Copenhagen. If nothing unforeseen happens, I will leavehere on the 4th of August for Stockholm. I had hardly finished thiswhen the town was put under martial law. Everything is upside down. The inhabitants are all ordered to leave. The bank is packing up, people streaming all day there. Everyone ordered off the streets atnight. The streets are occupied with soldiers and cannons moving tothe front, and the aspect seems serious. No one can tell anything. Ihave already signed a paper not to leave without the permission ofthe fort. If we have war I am ready to stay to the end. I have thegreatest sympathy for Servia and would like to work in the Red Crossthere if not here. I shall try to write you again before being shutup for good, if the town is besieged. We are only a few hours fromthe frontier. "

Kovno 1914. 

"Since last night the town is under martial law. Everything is upsidedown. Cannons hustling to the front. Cavalry going off. All theinhabitants are ordered to leave. We are in the very seat of war. Ifwe have war I am ready to stay to the end if need be. I only hope youwon't feel too terribly uneasy. The lack of communications will bethe worst. I feel great sympathy for Servia and hope this war willhelp them. All the big buildings are to be turned into hospitals. Thenew bank will be splendid--tile floors and water. It can hold atleast a thousand, I think. All kinds of specimens are turning up tobe enrolled as sisters, but I am relentless and shall take noadventuresses if I can help it. "

Kovno 1914. 

"I am glad it is for Servia, but O what a horror. I had none of thisimpression at Adrianople--the panic of a whole town before the war. Mobilization was begun last night, but the inhabitants were orderedto leave six days ago. I cannot describe it. It is just everythingthat one has ever read about war and a great deal besides. I am gladI have a good lot of sisters. I hope they will all do their duty. Communication will be cut off any minute. I shall be so anxious aboutmy family if we are shut up for long. Well, goodbye. I pray for thebest. One must be ready for anything. "

Kovno 1914. 

"Everything is cut off from Europe and I am dreadfully worried andunhappy to have no news from you and all the family. The wholefortress was put in a state of defense in no time, and the whole townhas been ordered out from one station. You can't imagine the scenes. Prince Wasilchikoff has helped me very much in the place of his wifewho had to go to Petersburg, and now he is going to join hisregiment. I hope he can take this letter to send through Sweden. Myconsolation is that the war was started in behalf of Servia--italleviates the horror of all that is going on. Prince Wasilchikoffcame in for a moment and said that the political situation was verygood and that England has declared war. Everyone is going to the warwith enthusiasm. Don't worry too much. This section of the Army willnot give in till the last. The Commander Grigorieff is splendid andGeneral Rennenkamph is a real fighting man. I have 56 sisters readyin Kovno. My heart and head are full of anxiety and love for you, foryou all. I may be able to get letters to you still, but if not, lookout for Tibi's little grave whatever happens. "

The absorbing work in Kovno, the excitement and the patriotic fervorwere all beneficial to Nelka's state of mind in that it took it offher constant thinking about the death of her little dog. 

While Nelka had her own sisters and hospital, the Army decided toconsolidate the services under their jurisdiction and turned theirown Army sisters over to Nelka and she found herself at the head ofsome 300 sisters. This was a large complicated administrative job butshe handled it with great efficiency. Most of the time the fortresswas under fire and it soon became obvious that it would not hold out. 

The commanding general did not prove to be as good and efficient asNelka supposed and he also lost his nerve. Under the increasingpressure of the Germans, he ordered the complete evacuation of thefortress, of the troops and material, while this was still possible. However, this was accomplished in a very poor manner and thecommander himself left the fortress 17 hours before Nelka did. Healso lost a great deal of his equipment. 

Nelka in turn completed a full evacuation of her whole hospital andsaved all of her material. Everything in the hospital building whichcould not be moved was destroyed and she went even that far to haveall brass knobs removed from the doors and thrown into the river sothat the Germans would not get the metal. 

So Kovno fell, but the war went on and Nelka's hospital wasreestablished some 40 or 50 miles to the rear as a rear unit takingcare of the evacuated wounded. They were settled in a largeagricultural school building in very fine surroundings. I managed tovisit Nelka at that hospital for a few days. 

Soon, however, the fighting resumed and the Germans resumed theiradvance. The hospital once again had to be moved. At that momentNelka came down with a very severe case of scarlet fever. The doctorsaid that she could not be moved, just as the hospital was gettingunder way. The head doctor had her arranged in bed in a tent, leavingher one nurse. At the last moment when leaving, he slipped a revolverunder her pillow! But Nelka recovered. The Germans did not reachthat point and ultimately she was able to rejoin her unit. 

Soon after that she was sent to the rear to a town called Novgorod, to organize a new unit. There she spent most of the winter and onceagain I managed to visit her there, as it was not very far fromPetersburg. 

All during the war, at different intervals, Nelka came back toPetersburg, mostly for just a few days and because of some businessfor her hospital or unit. Each time when she came to Petersburg shestayed at my mother's and thus I was able to see her occasionally. 

The impression she had made on me when I first saw her as a small boynever changed. The only difference was that growing up I came moreand more under her spell and was more and more deeply attached anddevoted to her. I was then 17 years old and very much in love withher. But she was fully grown and I was but a boy yet, so that anyhopes would seem rather futile for me. Futile because of thedifference of age and because I could hardly expect that she could beinterested in me. Also because of her great charm and personality shealways had great success with men everywhere and it was more thanpossible that some fortunate man would be able to win her. 

Both in Russia and in America and also while she was in Bulgaria andin Paris she had a great number of admirers and had over thirtyproposals from men of different nationalities. She even had aJapanese suitor. But she never was interested in any of these suitorsand once told my mother that she would never marry unless she had acomplete and all consuming feeling for the man she chose. 

But for the moment the war was on and everyone had other thoughts andjobs on hand than romance. 

But I was growing up and so was my feelings for her. Every timeNelka would come to Petersburg, I would see her off to the train, taking her back to the front. On one such an occasion I gave her abox of white cream caramels. It was nothing, but for some reason orother it touched her very much and she always said that to her it wasmeasure of my devotion. 

On these departures to the front, she was always in a hurry--havingso much to do and attend to. On these occasions the determination ofher character manifested itself at different times. Once she failedto secure the necessary permit to board a train going to thefront--there just wasn't the time for it. At the entrance to theplatforms armed guards stood and one had to show one's pass to getthrough. I warned Nelka that she probably would have trouble, but shesaid there was no time for this now and that she would find a way toget through. Of course we arrived just about the time the train waspulling out and dashed towards the platform. A soldier stood at theentrance with his rifle and when Nelka plunged headlong towards him, he thrust his rifle horizontally in front of her to stop her. Withouta moments hesitation she ducked low and slipped under the extendedrifle, and was on the moving train before the sentry knew what it wasall about!

On another occasion we arrived at the station just a little too late, even though she had her pass. When we dashed out on the platform wejust could see the two receding red lights of the departing train. Tothis day I do not know what happened, but Nelka raised such fireworksthat that train backed into the station. Nelka got on and the trainpulled out again!

I have often said that it took courage to be in love with a woman ofsuch determination!

After her winter in Novgorod, Nelka decided to form and organize aunit of her own to serve with the cavalry. She proceeded to raise thenecessary money and to select the personnel. As the head of the unitshe chose my uncle, my mother's brother, and as assistant a friend ofhis. She also chose some of the doctors she knew in Kovno as well assome of the sisters. The regular men orderlies and the horses werebeing supplied by the Red Cross. This unit was attached to the FirstGuard Cavalry Division. The doctors, the orderlies, the nurses wereall on horseback; the stretchers for the wounded likewise were onlong poles between two horses. When the whole unit was strung outIndian file it was a very long unit. 

Once attached to the Cavalry Division, the unit moved right alongwith it. Often this was very rough going. Often they would be calledout at night, had to saddle and be on the move. Nelka rode a horsenamed 'Vive la France. ' If they were to move any distance they wereloaded into trains. She always remembered a dark autumn nightunloading the horses from the train in the dark, in the woods, andright next to the position of artillery batteries, firingsteadily--the difficulty of controlling and trying to keep the horsesreasonably quiet. She had a great deal of trouble with her frightenedhorse, trembling and scared, because of the noise and flashing guns. The fighting was going on a short distance ahead and hardly had theyunloaded as the wounded started to be brought in. They worked on themin muddy dugouts. Between moments of respite Nelka would run out intothe dark and try to soothe her horse which was tied in the woods. Theguns kept on firing all night. 

This was the kind of life which went on. In July 1916 my uncle, thehead of the unit, was killed by shell fire, at a moment of some veryheavy fighting. The work they were carrying on was right near thefiring lines. 

At one time, during 1916 Nelka came for a few days to our countryestate and one day I went with her to Petrograd. There she received aletter from her Aunt Martha Wadsworth. I was coming back to thecountry with Nelka on the train. She had the letter in her hand butwould not open it for she said she felt it was bad news and she wasafraid. She had a premonition of something wrong. We traveled all theway in silence and I could see how very anxious and upset she was. Feeling as I did for her, it was painful for me to see her in thatstate but there was nothing I could do. She did not open the letteruntil we reached home and she went alone into her room. It was whatshe had expected--the news that her beloved Aunt Susie Blow had diedin New York. 

Another terrible, painful shock, Nelka took it in a very hard way butwith great calm and fortitude. She felt that she had failed her aunt, that she should have been with her, instead of at the war. She blamesherself. She felt that being at the war was a form of selfishness ofself-indulgence, when her duty should have been to remain with heraunt. 

Once again a tragic and very hard blow, a blow so hard to acceptbecause of her special devotion to that aunt. 

But the war was on--she could not even indulge in her sorrow and shehad to return to the front. Fighting was heavy that summer and hercavalry division was engaged and on the move. The unit was always upfront, close to the fighting lines and the work was hard. 

That summer I entered Officers Training School and did not see Nelkafor a very long time. 

On the first of February 1917, I received my commission as secondlieutenant in the First Infantry Guard Regiment. This was the lastpromotion done by the Emperor. I was assigned to the ReserveBattalion stationed in Petrograd. 

Less than a month later the Revolution broke out and I had a week ofstreet fighting. Then chaos ensued. 

Through most of the summer of 1917, I was at the front in Galicia. Nelka was somewhere at the front near the Rumanian border. We did notknow where each of us was and had no communications. 

Gradually the discipline in the Army, under the impact of theRevolution, broke down and the front started to disintegrate. 

While my regiment was coming apart on the Galician front, Nelka'sunit was doing the same on the Rumanian border. Some time towards theend of the summer the remnants of her unit were in Rumania andfinally came apart. She was left with but a few sisters and herassistant chief, a friend of hers, a Finnish gentleman, Baron Wrede. 

At a certain moment she sent him with some of the personnel andequipment from Rumania over the border back into Russia. However, sheherself remained behind to take care of the local priest who wasdesperately ill. A few days later, the priest died and she was readyto follow the unit back over the border. Just before leaving shefound and picked up a poor, small abandoned kitten. Tying the kittenup in her shawl and hanging it from her neck, she rode away fromRumania back to Russia. One soldier was riding back with her. Atnight time they arrived at a small village and for some reason orother, the soldier disappeared. After waiting for a while, there wasnothing to do but to continue. And so in the night, Nelka rode alonethrough the woods and over the mountains over the border from Rumaniainto Russia. A woman, riding alone, in the night in the midst of theRevolution! She rode all night, the kitten dangling in front of her. By morning she reached a Russian village and soon located the unit. She said she would never forget that ride in the night. The next daythe lost soldier turned up very much upset at having lost her on theway. 

The revolution was taking its toll and everything was rapidly comingapart, disintegrating and in a state of anarchy. There was no choicebut to drop everything and try to get back to Petrograd if possible. But this was not easy to do. Everything was in complete turmoil, noregular train service and the revolutionary soldiers in completecontrol of everything. The greatest danger was for the Finnish Baronwho as an officer was in danger from the soldiers. So a stratagem hadto be invented. Nelka went and declared that the Baron wasdesperately ill and had to be sent to Petrograd without delay, andthat for that she needed a special permit. This she managed to secureand was assigned a compartment in the overfilled train. The perfectlyhealthy Baron was brought in and arranged lying down all the trip ofseveral days, while Nelka had to take care of him, bring him food andlook after the 'invalide. ' He said afterwards that he had a 'verypleasant trip. ' While lying in his berth he kept with him the kitten. Finally they arrived in Petrograd. The Baron then returned to Finlandtaking with him the kitten where it lived on their estate to a ripeold age. 

Nelka, upon her arrival, stopped as usual at my mother's. Soon afterthat I returned from the front. Now we were all together once moreand all together tried to survive in the Revolution, which was not aneasy matter. I then joined the British Military Mission with theoffices at the British Embassy. 

About that time the Kerensky Government was overthrown by theBolsheviks and a lot of fighting took place in the city. Nelka usedto say how pretty the city looked with the streets completely empty, when she would be returning home, sometimes skirting the walls of thebuildings when some shooting would start along the street. We allsoon got used to that kind of existence, which became a normal way oflife. 

But the Revolution was going on and things were getting worse fromday to day. The Bolsheviks were killing right and left and the Redterror was in full swing. My work with the British Mission was atthat time of some protection for the Bolsheviks were not yet sure ofthemselves to the extent of daring to molest the foreign missions. Mywork with the Mission took me away on various trips accompanyingBritish officers. 

In the spring of 1918, one of these trips took me to Mourmansk on theArctic Ocean and where fighting was in progress between WhiteRussians and other foreign units and the Bolsheviks. 

All that area was not exactly a very healthy place to be in and afterquite a few adventures I managed to return to Petrograd. I broughtback with me 75 cases of what the British call 'Iron Rations, ' amixture of all kinds of food to be used in emergencies. 

Food was more than scarce by that time and I was given a couple ofcases. It was a God send for all of us. We all subsisted on it. 

But the Bolsheviks were getting bolder by the day and were raidinghouses, arresting former officers and executing them every night. 

One evening about ten, a knock came on the door. I opened. Three menwith rifles came in with a commissar. They asked for me by name andsaid they had an order to search the place. They asked if I had anyarms and I said I had a service revolver, which had been given to meby the British. I also had another revolver of mine which lay on themantelpiece. Nelka, who was there in the room, did at that moment amost risky thing. Unobtrusively she slipped my revolver into thepocket of her dress. I noticed this, but the men did not. I producedthe other gun which they dutifully registered and took. They thenproceeded to search the place and after examining my papers, announced that I would not be arrested in view of my service with theBritish. Upon that they left. Nelka had done a most risky thing, forhad the pistol been discovered in her pocket, it probably would havebeen the end of all of us. 

However, things were getting very acute and very dangerous. It wasobvious that a similar raid might happen again any day and might notfinish as well. Should I be arrested and taken away the chances wouldbe of my being shot. So far my service with the British had served asa protection, but with the relations with the foreigners fast gettingworse, this could mean just the opposite for me and the connectionwould be detrimental instead of helpful. So it soon proved to be. 

We all had a general consultation and decided to try and get out ofthe country if only possible. My father went to Moscow where he knewa prominent Jew who was procuring exit permits, for a price, and washelping that way people to get abroad. Then we all began to moveabout trying to stay in different places, different nights. 

In the midst of all this, I declared my love to Nelka and asked herto marry me. She refused because she said she did not think it wasfair to me on account of our age difference. I was then twenty-oneand she was forty. I kept insisting. She admitted that she loved meand would not hesitate had it not been because of the age difference. 

On a certain Friday morning something kept me from going as usual tothe British Embassy where our offices were located. This proved to bemy salvation for that same morning the Embassy was raided by theBolsheviks. They invaded the Embassy, arrested all the Britishofficers and killed Commander Crombie right on the entrance stepswhen he tried to stop them from entering. They hung his body headdown out of one of the windows. 

All the Russian officers who worked with the Mission were alsoarrested and promptly shot. Of 16 such officers, only three includingmyself ultimately got away. Thirteen were shot. 

After the Embassy raid my position became extremely precarious, for Iwas now on the black list and being searched for. While previously myconnection with the Mission had been a protection, now it was justthe opposite. I could not very well remain in our apartment and weall scattered, except my mother who remained. My father was still inMoscow. Nelka went to some friends. I spent some time in the countrywhere I hid for some time in our empty house. 

It is to be noted that food was practically unavailable and thatthere was no money to buy it with if there was any. So we all had apretty desperate time, but so did everyone else. 

In the midst of all this, Nelka finally agreed to marry me. Perhapsthe Revolution, the circumstances, the constant danger which we wereall facing all of the time, helped her make her decision. But decideshe did and so one day early in September 1918 we went to TsarskoeSelo, an hour by train from Petrograd where an old aunt of minelived. We were married in a church there with just a handful offriends in attendance. Nelka wore a white sister's uniform for herwedding dress. My old aunt who was very fond of Nelka took off a goldbracelet she wore and put it on Nelka's arm. Nelka never took it offthroughout her life. 

Some friends of ours let us use their empty apartment for ourhoneymoon. We had a 5 pound can of British bully beef and subsistedon that until it was used up. We then returned to Petrograd and movedinto one room of a tiny flat where a Polish woman, Mrs. Kelpsh, livedwho had worked in Nelka's hospital in Kovno. This was in a back yardof a small side street. She registered Nelka under her maiden nameand me not at all. If seen, I was just supposed to be a boy-friendvisiting. 

However, things were getting more and more dangerous, and we had toinvent something if we were to save ourselves. 

Earlier, before our marriage, when things were not so bad and we wereall seeking ways of getting out of Russia, I had applied for aforeign passport to go abroad. At first some people were being letout before the Bolsheviks clamped down on everybody. 

Now, this application at the Foreign Office or Commissariat was adangerous identity of myself and a disclosure, especially when I wasbeing searched for because of my connection with the British Mission. 

Nelka knew this situation and one day unknown to me she went to theCommissariat. There she very naively inquired about the applicationof Michael Moukhanoff. The girl looked up and brought out my file, looked it over and said that no decision had been made yet. Nelkathen asked when one could hope to have an answer. The girl said shedid not know but could go and find out. If Nelka would wait she wouldgo and inquire. She left the room and Nelka then did a very desperatething. She picked up the file from the table, walked quickly out ofthe room, down the corridor and then faster down the steps and intothe street where she mixed into the crowd. A dangerous thing to do, but my file was gone, even though my position became that way onlymore illegal and perhaps even more dangerous. But Nelka as usual didthe decided thing with courage and determination. 

Like many others we were now trying to escape. Like always in suchcases, there are people who for a price were getting people out oftown and over the Finish border. It was very dangerous work forthem--dangerous for the people trying to leave and also expensive. Weestablished contact with one such person who turned out to be a verydecent fellow, and he agreed to try and get us out. He had peasantsalong the border whom he knew and who were helping him. These he hadto pay and quite highly for it was all dangerous work for them also. He warned us that he could not tell when he would be ready to move usand that we should be ready to go on a moment's notice. Therefore, weprepared what we thought we could take with us and waited. 

In the meantime my father had succeeded to get some false papersthrough his Jewish friend in Moscow and with these he and my mothermanaged to get over the Finnish border into Finland by train. Theywere by now in Stockholm and getting ready to sail to America. 

By this time also, Nelka and I were living in another house, in aclosed apartment in a house where some very close friends of ourslived. Nelka was registered there under a false passport in the nameof Emilia Sarapp. I was not known, unless as a boy friend. 

The food situation had become absolutely desperate. There just wasnone. Some mornings I would go to the outskirts of the city wherepeasants would come in their sleighs selling milk. People fought toget a quart of this watery stuff. 

We also had some frozen potatoes. When frozen, potatoes are pink andsweet and slimy. These we ate without butter or even salt which wasnot available. The watery milk sometimes helped. Once in a while wegot a loaf of black bread with a mixture of straw. I saw people cutoff chunks of meat from a dead horse lying in the street and carry ithome for their dinner. 

So we packed some clothes and valuables and waited. Before leaving, we wanted once more to see my old aunt in Tsarskoe and we went thereto say goodbye. We spent the day with her and were returning toPetrograd before dark, for a curfew was sometimes imposed and it wasnot safe to be around in the dark. 

As we were hurrying through the crowded station, someone slipped upto the side of Nelka. It was our friend from the house we lived in. She whispered to Nelka: "Do not return home. A raid took place andthey have an ambush waiting for you. " Having said that, she slippedaway into the crowd. 

Now we were in a desperate fix, and we knew it. The first thing wasto get off the streets. We quickly thought it over and then calledthe apartment of some friends of mine, who we knew were not there, but where an old governess was still remaining. We just said we wouldcome over. People understood and asked no questions. We went there, explained what had happened and spent the night. 

We were in a critical situation. We had no money, except a little onhand, no belongings of any kind, except the clothes on us, and ingreater danger of getting caught. So first of all, we went to the manwho was to take us over the border and explained the situation. Heespecially understood how very dangerous it was particularly for me, with all the points which were against me. He said he had nothingarranged for the moment, except one possibility which was not toocertain and not too safe. He had a peasant coming to see him that dayand that he could send me with him, but not both, for this was not tosure a way. He suggested that we better accept this proposition thatI be got out of the way at once and over the border and that with thenext safer possibility he could move Nelka, I to be waiting just overthe border. Nelka explained that we had no money but that she thoughtthat she could get some from some one she knew. We all discussed thesituation together for a while, but saw that there was not muchchoice. In the meantime, the peasant arrived and the man went to talkto him. Finally, it was decided that Nelka remain with our friendsunder the name of Emilia Sarapp and that I go with the peasant, andwait at the border. 

It was all very bad. Finally we had to say goodbye, both realizingthe danger but having little choice. It was quite a heartbreakingseparation--I leaving into the unknown with a bandit lookingindividual, of whom we knew nothing, Nelka remaining in the city withthe uncertainty of finding any money. 

I will not go into the details of my trip, except to say that it wasnot easy nor safe, but I finally late that night reached the Finnishborder and crossing the stream separating the two countries in thewoods and deep snow, arrived at a small Finnish peasant hut. 

I explained the situation to him and that I would like to stay withhim for a few days until my wife could join me. He readily agreed forhe knew and participated in this business of people escaping and wasreceiving a number of them at all times. He was also engaged incontraband dealings and a number of his agents kept coming and goingthrough his hut, moving goods over the border. I had just a littlemoney and arranged to have him keep me. I gave a note to the peasantwho brought me over and he promised to get it to Nelka when hereturned to Petrograd. Then I waited. Practically every night peoplecame over the border and most of them stopped at the hut. It wasquite an active spot. One or two of the parties who were all comingthrough the services of the same man, brought me notes from Nelka. Once or twice I crossed the border back into Russia and went aboutfive miles to the nearest village hoping that perhaps Nelka wascoming through with the next party as she wrote she hoped to. Thisperhaps was dangerous and risky on my part, but nervousness just keptme from sitting still. 

Then the unforeseen happened. At that time the Finnish people werehaving a revolution of their own. There were Red Finns and WhiteFinns fighting each other all over the country. The front was fluidwith small units moving back and forth, here and there, occupyingthis or that area or this or that village. There is where misfortunestruck me. A Red Finnish patrol took possession of the area and I wascaught by the Red patrol. 

This has nothing to do with this story I am now writing about Nelka, so I will not go into this complicated and lengthy matter of how Imanaged to escape from the Finnish Reds. This is a long story. Suffice it to say, that I managed to get away. 

But it was not possible any more for me to remain on Finnish groundand I crossed in the night back into Russia. Having no money I wasobliged to walk and walked about 30 miles to Petrograd. I finallymade it, but I did not know where to look for Nelka so I went to ourman. He told me that Nelka was to come and see him that morning atabout eleven, and so I waited. Nelka arrived on time. When she saw meshe went into an absolute fury, for my having come back. I alwayssaid that she was in such a fury with me that for about 48 hours Inever even had a chance to try to tell her why I was back. 

Finally I got it over to her, and while we were happy to be togetheragain, our position was just as desperate, if not worse, and we wereback where we had started. We knew that we better do something fast. However, while Nelka had managed to get some money, there was notenough to pay the man to get us over. 

So I made a suggestion. In as much as I had crossed the border twiceand knew the way pretty well, I suggested that we go on our ownwithout any guide or assistance. We explained this to our man who wasvery nice about it and said that if we wanted to take the risk it wasup to us. 

However, there was little choice so we decided. We paid him for myfirst trip and had a little money left. Through some black marketdealer we managed to get a loaf of black bread and with nothing elsebut the clothes on our backs, we started out. Nelka wore a sistersuniform black dress, a heavy cloth coat, a fur cap and black leatherhigh boots--like riding boots. I wore a military field uniformwithout insignia, like most of all the population wore at that time. While adequate, none of this was too warm for long stays in the cold, but we had nothing else. It was the end of December. 

Early in the morning we took a train in the direction of the Finnishborder. Trains ran as far as the border, but we got off two stationsearlier, at the same one I used the first time. From that station weproceeded on foot down a country road towards a village I knew somefive miles away. We reached there in the early afternoon and stoppedat a hut where I also had been on my first trip. The peasant womangave us some soup and we were resting and warming up, when suddenly abunch of red soldiers entered the yard. The woman whisked us quicklyinto an empty room in the back of the house and told us to remainquiet. We could hear the men come in and ask her if she had seen anyrefugees around. (It is to be noted that there were constantly peopletrying to escape all along the border and the Reds were alwayssearching them out. At one time as many as 100 to 150 were gettingover the border daily. All along the border within five miles peoplewere shot on sight. )

We heard the woman say she had seen no one. One of the men askedabout her house and asked what was in that room, meaning the one wewere in. The woman answered, "Oh, I keep my chicken there. " The mendid not insist and left. It was a close call. After the men left, thewoman suggested that we better leave too, for it was too risky forher to have us there. We got by once, but it might not happen againso we also decided that we better leave. The soldiers had gone in thedirection of the station, and, as we were to continue further, we gotout on to the road and started for the next village, a distance ofnearly seven miles through the woods. I also knew that village andsome of the peasants. From there the path through the woods led tothe Finnish border, some five miles away. 

It was getting late and was not a good time to be out at dark for atnight the Reds put out patrols. I hoped however to reach the villagebefore nightfall and so we hurried along. The road was well rolleddown--the going was not hard and we made good time. 

It was just getting dark but a moon was coming up when we reached thevillage. The first hut was the one I had been to before and I knewthe peasants there, who were some of the peasants working for ourman. We entered and a woman rushed up to us crying and urging us toget out. She was weeping and finally managed to explain that herhusband had just been arrested by the Reds and taken away onsuspicion that he was helping the refugees. She practically pushed usout of the house. 

So here we were, out on the road facing a dilemma. Any moment now thenight Red patrol would be out on the road. Another one would be outat the village we came from. Before us lay the path towards theFinnish border, but it crossed a wide field before entering thewoods. I knew the way well but with the full moon out you could see agreat distance, like in the day, on the bright snow and I was afraidto be spotted crossing that field. 

I told Nelka I was afraid to risk this trip towards the border as itwas so light. But we had little choice, for the patrols would be outany minute now and we could not remain on the road. With no otherchoice left we retreated into the woods, off the road and settledunder some thick pine trees for the night, right in the snow. It wasXmas eve. 

We survived the night and even slept a little. It was also evidentthat Nelka was developing some kind of flu and was running atemperature. I used to joke that she melted the snow around usbecause of that. Luckily there was no wind. The snow was deep and wedug out a hollow. The temperature was probably about ten or fifteenabove. Remember we had no covers--just our clothes. We ate some ofour remaining black bread. We were tired from so much walking and sowe slept. 

By morning it was obvious that Nelka was ill and had a temperature. We had to act quick and invent something, so we went back to thevillage and I entered the same hut again. The woman had quieted downand did not push us out. We also found there another couple whoturned out to be an officer with his wife trying to get out as wedid, so we decided to stick together. The woman suggested that we goby sleigh to the next village and try to cross from there. So wehired a sleigh and started out--this time the four of us with thedriver. It was now fairly safe to move along the roads by day withthe night patrols off. 

We drove to the next village about ten miles away. When we came tothe village, our driver said he wanted to stop at the tavern whichwas located at the entrance to the village. He went in while wewaited in the sleigh. When he came out a soldier followed him ontothe porch. He looked at us suspiciously and then asked the peasantwhere we were coming from. The peasant named a village to the east. The soldier then suddenly said: "Why your horse is turned the wrongway, wait a minute, " and he stepped back into the tavern. 

Our driver whipped up his horse and we went down the road as fast aswe could. Looking back we saw several soldiers run out on the porch. One of them lifted his rifle and a shot came over us, but we werewell on our way. They had no horses available to follow us so did notpursue and we got away. After a ride of some two miles, we turnedsharply to the left and down a narrow lane into the woods. Here thepeasant stopped and said the border was only about two miles away andthat he would lead us for so much. We agreed. He hid his sleigh andhorse in an empty barn and we started out. Soon the lane ended and wewere in thick woods. The snow was waste deep and with the fallenlogs, the going was extremely difficult. We had to haul the womenover the logs and pull them out of the deep snow. Both the women andespecially Nelka who was ill, were completely exhausted. It was apainful procession. Finally we came to a clearing in the woods andthe peasant turning around, said very calmly, "This is Finland. " Avery strange feeling of elation and apprehension and a strangefeeling of leaving in such a manner one's native land. 

We were now not at all sure what kind of Finns we would encounter, but soon we saw two Finnish soldiers and much to my relief Irecognized them as being White Finns. They stopped us and then tookus to the village to their officer. A young lieutenant was sitting ata table in a small hut. We reported to him and when I mentioned thatI was an officer and named my regiment, he rose and saluted. TheFinns were very decent and helpful in every way. Despite their owndifficulties, they extended help to the numerous refugees comingover, established receiving camps and medical units for the sick. Wewere taken by sleigh to Terrioky. Nelka as having temperature wastaken to the hospital and I to the camp. As soon as possible wecommunicated with our friends the Wredes in Helsingfors and theyimmediately took steps to get us out of camp and into their own home. So in a few days we were on our way to Helsingfors where we receivedthe warmest hospitality from the Wredes and remained with them forabout six weeks. 

We then proceeded by way of Stockholm and Oslo to the United Statessailing on the Stavangerfiord for New York early in February of 1919. 

Upon our arrival in America we went to Washington where we stayedwith Nelka's Aunt and Uncle. Later in the spring we went to Cazenoviato the little house which Nelka's Aunt Susie had left her and spentfinally a restful and quiet summer, which was our honeymoon time. Wewere also regaining our health, which had suffered from thestarvation period. Nelka put on some forty pounds and I came back tonormal after having been bloated from hunger, like some starved Hinduchild. 

However, we soon felt that this easy and restful life was not rightmorally. The Bolsheviks were still in power, wrecking Russia and acivil war was raging between the Bolsheviks and the White Russians:We decided that it was our duty to go back and help. So I went toWashington and offered my services at the Russian mission to join oneof the volunteer armies. We first planned to go to Siberia but thendecided we would join the army of General Denikin in the South ofRussia, and I was given an assignment there. 

Before sailing for Europe we went to New Orleans to visit Nelka'scousin and then sailed from there for Liverpool, and then to Londonand Paris. Once in Paris we were advised that things were not goingwell in the south with the army of General Denikin and that we betterwait before going on. So we stayed in France and I joined the Frenchairplane factory of Louis Breguet near Paris where I worked for about8 months. Then things got better in the Southern Army and we onceagain decided to go on to the Army reorganized now by GeneralWrangel. 

Just at that time the Breguet factory received an order for nightbombers for the Russian Army and it was arranged that I escort thatshipment to the Crimea. So once again I put on the uniform of aRussian lieutenant, Nelka put on the uniform of a Russian Red Crossnurse and we set out. 

The planes were boxed and sent to Marseilles where they were loadedon a French freighter, the Saint Basil, and we left forConstantinople. As the planes were bulky but light, the boat waslight and high in the water. Because of that the propeller was buthalfway in the water and our progress was very slow. It took us 17days to get to Constantinople. Hardly had we dropped anchor in theBosphorus as a launch drew up and a French officer came aboard andasked who was in charge of the shipment. He informed me that we couldnot proceed any further because news had just been received that theArmy of General Wrangel had started the evacuation of the Crimea. 

So we had to go ashore. The planes, having come from France, wereunloaded and left with the French Army of occupation. So, came to anend our trip and our efforts to join the White Russian Army. Welanded in Constantinople and in the next few days the evacuated Armyof Wrangel started to arrive. Over 140, 000 people arrived includingthe remnants of the army and between 6 and 7 thousand wounded. Theplight of these people was terrible. While the wounded were landedand taken care of by the American and British Red Cross, most of therest were not allowed ashore and were kept on board the ships in theharbour. One boat had 12, 000 people aboard. 

The day after we had arrived, I accidentally met in the street RobertImbrie, whom I had known when he was American Consul in Petrograd. Itturned out that he also had just arrived and like ourselves was alsoon his way to the Crimea, appointed from the State Department. Heasked me what I was going to do and I explained that probably for themoment we would return to France. He said that he was waiting forinstructions from Washington to know what to do. Next day hecontacted me saying that he was assigned to form a Russian Section atthe American Embassy in Constantinople and offered me a job to workwith him. I gladly accepted and so we stayed in Constantinople forthe next 8 months. 

It was a very interesting period. My work was varied. I acted asinterpreter at the American Embassy with the Russians and with theFrench. Nelka joined the organization of the French Admiral's wife, Madame Dumesnil, doing refugee relief work. 

It was an interesting and exhilarating time in Constantinople. We sawand knew a number of very interesting people. We saw unusualsituations and we were both very busy. 

Mr. Imbrie, with whom I worked, had as his assignment to undertakeinspection tours. For this he often used the American destroyerswhich were anchored in the Bosphorus. Thus, we went to Gallipoli, toLemnos, to Salonica, etc. 

On a certain day we took off for Varna in Bulgaria and from there toBatum in the Caucasus. 

Nelka remained in Constantinople and had with her a little companion, a dog Djedda. Djedda influenced a great deal of our future existence, and as you will see there was quite a story attached to this littledog. 

One day we were visiting the bazaar of Constantinople, a colorful, typical oriental spot, crowded and noisy, with oriental smells andsounds. In one of the passages we came across a small, brown dog, which was running around frightened and miserable. We spoke to herand, while she was timid, she was friendly and came to us. We decidedto pick her up and that we could give her to the little daughter ofthe man in whose house we had a room. The little girl Offy was livingwith her father who had recently lost his wife and we thought thatthe little dog would fit in nicely as a playmate for the little girl. Offy was very pleased and we showed her how to take care of the dog. The first thing to do was to wash the dog and get some of the grimeoff. When this was done we were surprised to find out that she waswhite not brown, the size of a small fox terrier, with lovely eyesand a vivacious disposition. So all was well for the dog, for Offyand for us--at least for the moment. A few days later Offy announcedthat the dog seemed ill. We examined her and found that she wasrunning a temperature, would not move and certainly was not well. Wearranged her in a small box and took her to our room for she neededbetter care than the little girl could give her. As she did notimprove, we took her to the veterinary and he found that she wassuffering from inflammatory rheumatism of the joints. He gave hersome medicine and told us to keep her quiet. This was not difficultto do for she was very ill and did not move. In this criticalcondition she must have stayed for about two weeks, possibly more. Then she began to show some signs of recovery, but even this was verygradual. Gradually she began to regain strength and finally we triedto have her get out of her box and walk about. When we tried this, wefound to our surprise that she could not stand up and we discoveredthat her two front legs had stiffened in the joints, which would notmove. Those joints had actually grown together and the dog wouldnever be able to move them again. However, with time Djedda adaptedherself wonderfully to this situation and learned to hobble aboutjust on her hind legs supporting herself by holding her left frontleg against her hip. The right front leg was bent up below her chinagainst her chest. Naturally in that condition the dog could notremain with the little girl so she stayed with us. And despite hercrippled condition, Djedda was a most wonderful and lovable dog. Sheadapted herself so well that she could even go up the steps. 

Like all invalids, Djedda adapted herself wonderfully and was quiteproficient in her movements, though she always remained a cripple. The only thing she could not do was come down the stairs. So, if shefound herself at the head of the stairs, she would start barkinguntil someone came to carry her down. She was a very wonderful pet tous for about 12 years. This poor little cripple was the most gay andjoyful little dog, a wonderful and devoted companion and we neverregretted for a moment having had the good luck of finding her. Shegave us a great deal of joy and comfort. 

So when I left with Imbrie for Batum, Nelka remained with Djedda. When leaving I told Nelka that I was to be back a certain Monday. Well, things did not go exactly on schedule. When we got to Batum, wefound that the city, which was occupied by the Turks, was beingbesieged by the Georgians. We went ashore, looked the situation overand saw that it was not good. We remained anchored in the harbor. Thenext morning the Georgians attacked and hot fighting resulted. Mostof it was with small arms only, but when the bullets begun to spatteragainst our destroyer, the captain decided that we better get out, which we did, and we steamed back to Constantinople. With this delay, we were off schedule and instead of arriving on Monday it wasWednesday. When I returned home I found that Nelka was gone, with anote left for me. The note said that as I had not returned on Mondayand as news had reached Constantinople that heavy fighting was on inBatum, that she was leaving to look for me. I was furious, because itwas so utterly useless. 

Upon inquiry I found that she had boarded a small Italian freighterplying the cost of Asiatic Turkey. The boat named San Georgio hadleft on Tuesday and had no wireless. The boat's company explainedthat she was due back in about three weeks. 

I went to explain the situation to Admiral Bristol at the AmericanEmbassy. He said that he knew about Nelka having gone, for whiledisapproving of it and advising her against it, he had helped her getthe Interallied visas which were necessary to be able to leave thecity. Normally it took about a week to get these visas, British, French, Italian and United States. Nelka got them in 3 hours. 

While the Embassy reassured her and told her there was nothing toworry about, her main objective of getting on a boat was to try tocommunicate with me on the destroyer by wireless. It later developedthat, after she had left on the San Georgio and they were out at sea, then only did she discover that the boat carried no wireless. Therefore her main objective of communicating with me was notpossible but this she discovered too late. 

She had booked passage first class and upon arriving found out thatthat entitled her to a chair in the salon. Others sat on the deck onthe floor. The decks were crowded with Turkish men who were travelingfrom one small port to the next along the east. Each night theybrought out their small prayer rugs and turning towards the settingsun, prayed kneeling in rows on deck. 

Once aboard, Nelka also found out that first class tickets did notinclude meals. Having very little money with her, she found that shewas not able to afford to buy much. She had a bag of apples with her. Not having anyone to leave Djedda with, Nelka took her along andcarried her under her arm all the time. While they did not feedNelka, the steward was very kind and Djedda was fed. And so theytraveled. 

I, in the meantime, was desperately trying to find a way to contactNelka on the San Georgio. The admiral and the Embassy were verycooperative and the admiral issued orders to all the destroyers tokeep an eye for the San Georgio and intercept her if spotted. 

Having traveled most of the length of the southern coast of the BlackSea, the Italian captain announced that he was going into Batum. Batum in the meantime had been occupied by the Bolshevik forces andtherefore Nelka's position became very precarious. She argued withthe captain but he said he had a cargo to pick up and that he wasgoing in. The first thing Nelka did was to hide her identificationpapers, her passport and visas. Better to have nothing than to befound out as a White Russian. She remained in the cabin while inBatum. On the second morning a bunch of Bolshevik soldiers arrivedand announced that they were going to search the ship. This was avery dangerous situation for Nelka. However after a while, and whilethey had been half through the boat, another party arrived andstarted an argument with the first bunch as to who had the right tomake this search. They pretty nearly came to blows in this argument, but finally still arguing all left without finishing the search. Thiswas a close call for Nelka. Next morning the San Georgio pulled outon her way back to Constantinople. She was grateful, but by now wasbecoming pretty hungry and what food she managed to get was veryscarce. 

A few days later, just as they were pulling into Samsun, the Americandestroyer John D. Edwards spotted the San Georgio, hailed her andinquired about Nelka. When told that she was aboard, they lowered aboat and came to fetch her, and took her and the dog aboard uponspecific orders from Admiral Bristol. The commanding officer, CaptainSharp was most helpful and kind. He gave Nelka his cabin and, also asshe had run out of everything, offered her his underclothes. Twosailors were assigned to take care of Djedda. 

They steamed back towards Constantinople, but had to delay the returnfor they had to go out to sea for gunnery practice. Thus, Nelka musthave remained on the destroyer for four or five days beforereturning. This was a very harrowing and needless expedition whichcould have very easily ended in a tragic manner. 

By summer the work of the Russian section of the Embassy was comingto an end. My chief, Mr. Imbrie, received a new assignment to go toRumania, and we decided to return to France. The Embassy hearingthis, offered to give us a permit to travel to Marseilles on anAmerican Shipping Board vessel, which normally did not carrypassengers. They advised that it would be convenient for us andinexpensive, the rate being only $5 per day for each of us, for atrip of about five days. 

We accepted with pleasure. It was also convenient for thetransportation of our animals, for by this time, in addition toDjedda we had a small black dog and two young cats. One, Nuri, was asmall kitten which I picked up out of the gutter where it was nearlydrowned in the rain. That was a very wonderful cat who lived with usfor 18 years. 

Late one evening we boarded the Lake Farley. The captain assigned tous our cabin and we were underway. It was late July and when weentered the cabin we found that the temperature must have been wellover a hundred. It was so hot that the floor was too hot for the catsto walk on and they kept jumping back and forth from one bunk to theother. The dogs we had left on deck. 

So we went to the Captain and complained about the heat. He said hewas sorry he had nothing better but that the whole boat was at ourdisposal and we could arrange ourselves wherever we wished. So afterlooking everything over, we finally decided to sleep on top of thechartroom. We climbed up there with a couple of blankets and settledfor the night under the stars. This was not bad but only the sparksfrom the funnel kept raining down on us most of the time. But we gotused to this and stayed that way most of the trip. The captain wasAmerican as well as the mate but the crew was of all nationalities, the cook being a Turk. However it did not look as though the tripwould last only five days as the boat was very slow. We stopped onour way at Biserta on the African coast and had a day ashore. The dayafter we left Biserta at lunch time, I smelled smoke, so I told NelkaI would go and investigate. The moment I came out on deck the alarmbells started off and I saw the middle of the ship aflame. 

While I went on deck, Nelka had gone to our cabin, and when sheentered she also heard the alarm. So picking up the two cats and alife belt, she hurried on deck. I likewise picked up the two dogs anda life belt. 

The captain was hollering from the bridge to lower the boats as theship would blow up because of the oil. In a few minutes one of theboats was already bobbing on the water and the cook in his white capwas in it. However, all who were available were fighting the fire, mostly with sand and finally we got it under control. All was fine, only the fire did some damage in the engine room and for more than aday we drifted while they were making repairs. 

Then we resumed our way to Barcelona where we were to unload some ofthe wheat we were carrying. When we got there the Spanish authoritieswould not allow us to go ashore for, as we were Russians, theydecided that we may be communists. So they even posted a policeman tosee that we would not sneak off. This might not have been so bad, butin the unloading a mistake was made. The forward hull was emptied andas a result the ship sank by the stern and got stuck in the mudbottom. It took us a whole week to extricate ourselves and all thattime we had to just sit on that boat. 

By the time we finally got to Marseille we had been traveling forthree weeks. 

We settled in Menton where we remained for several years. I worked ina French Real Estate office. We also played at Monte Carlo and werequite proficient. Nelka used to say that this was the only honest and"above board" business. 

In the summer of 1927 we received the news that Nelka's Uncle HerbertWadsworth had died suddenly from a heart attack. Once again Nelka hada severe blow and sorrow and once more she had lost a close personwithout having seen him. That fall we finally sailed for America withour friends Count and Countess Pushkin. We all settled in Cazenoviawhere Count Pushkin and I started a furniture carving business whichwe kept up for about three years, until the start of the depression. 

While living on the Riviera our animal family had grown to 8 dogs and5 cats, all picked up or abandoned. The little crippled Djedda wasstill with us and the most cherished of our pets. We brought thewhole menagerie with us to America. 

In 1930 when the depression was well under way, we once again sailedback to France and this time were there for three years--part of thetime in the South and part near Paris. My father died at that timeand in 1934 we returned to America. 

On arrival, we went directly to Ashantee to visit Nelka's AuntMartha, who had been quite ill for sometime after a car accident. Wearrived on a Saturday. The next Tuesday Aunt Martha died. This wasagain a terrible shock for Nelka. Once again death had strucksuddenly and this time her last close relative was gone. Both AuntSusie and Uncle Herbert had died without Nelka being with them andnow Aunt Martha dies only three days after we had returned. 

Aunt Martha left Ashantee to Nelka and her cousin Lutie Van Horn. Sounexpectedly we found ourselves here and remained. At first wethought that we would sell the property but the depression was on andit was not possible to do so. 

Thus we stayed and stayed. I did some farming and we still had theremnants of her aunt's horse business, but these were difficult yearsfor us. 

I think that while this prolonged stay might have been difficult andmaterially complicated, this time was not wasted, as Nelka pointedout, from a moral point of view. It was a time of consolidation ofour points of view, of our beliefs and conceptions. 

And so we stayed here from 1934 until today, and until Nelka passedaway in December 1963--a long stay of close to thirty years. 

Nelka had had a very varied, very diversified and unusual life. Alife which was one of highly emotional feelings. I thinkcharacteristic of Nelka was her highly emotional expression ofloyalty and devotion, an emotion, which dominated most of her lifeand all of her actions. 

Anything she did or undertook was primarily motivated by emotionrather than by reason, but once decided upon she carried out heractions with great determination and great will power. 

Her first overwhelming emotional feeling was a patrioticnationalistic feeling for Russia, and a mystic devotion to the personof the Emperor and the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Then her next emotional feeling was the attachment and deep loyaltyfor her family and her kin. 

But in Russia she had no relatives and all her family was American. Because of that there seemed always to be a conflict of feelings, attachments and loyalties, a conflict which dominated a great part ofher life, at least the first part of it. I think in many respectsthis conflict of feelings was upsetting and painful and she suffereda great deal from the frustrations that these feelings often broughtabout. 

Because of these conflicting feelings and attachments Nelka wasrestless and went back and forth between Europe and America alwaysseeking a solution and a way of life. I think these conflictingfeelings and the deep attachment to her family were the main reasonswhy for so long she had not married. She just was afraid to create oradd a new attachment. 

Pretty, with a lovely figure, always very feminine, with a brilliantmind and a sparkling personality, a great sense of humor, broad anddiversified education, an understanding of art and good taste, cosmopolitan in her experiences and speaking four languages--Nelkahad tremendous success both with men and with women. 

The friends she had were always deeply devoted friends who kept theirfriendship through years or through life and were always under thespell of her personality. 

Her overwhelming personality and charm naturally attracted men andabout thirty men of every nationality had at one time or anotherasked her in marriage. When she was twenty-two, during her fourmonths visit in Bulgaria, five men proposed to her. 

But she never agreed, first because just marriage for the sake ofmarriage had no attraction for her, and because of her emotionalattachments she was afraid to create a new one. She also once told mymother that she would never marry unless she had a complete andoverwhelming feeling, and that she had not yet found. 

Throughout these years and because of these conflicting feelings, Ithink she was disturbed and in many ways not happy. There was toomuch conflict of feelings. Also her philosophically inclined mind wasalways searching and seeking--searching a religious understanding oflife, always questioning the reasons for this or that problem oflife. Her Aunt Susan Blow, who was a great student of philosophy, contributed much in a way to Nelka's emotional seekings. But howoften in later years Nelka lamented the fact that she had notutilized fully the wisdom and the knowledge that her aunt could havegiven her in her philosophical understandings. Nelka was seeking byherself, trying to unravel the questions which bothered her throughher own thinking. 

But from a rational point of view some of her feelings and emotionswere very devastating for her own existence and her own serenity. Andher deep attachment to the family was also a source of pain andsuffering because of its acuteness. There was not much family leftbut for those who remained, Nelka gave a full measure of love anddevotion. The loss of those close to her were blows which did notheal easily and caused deep pain. The death of her little dog Tibilikewise gave a nearly exaggerated frustration and grief. Just likeeverything else in her life, Nelka's grief was complete. She ineverything understood and accepted only completeness. Nothing in herlife meant anything if it was only partial. She could never settlefor 50%, always seeking totality, only completeness, and this ofcourse is a tremendous strain on one's person. That strain I thinkshowed itself in Nelka for many years of her life and only towardsthe later part of it she seemed to acquire some stability of feelingand emotional impulse. There was a reason for that of which I willspeak later. 

A friend of hers once said about her, "She was a tremendouspersonality and such force. "

Like all humans she had her weaknesses, but these weaknesses were ina way her force, for by sheer will power, by determination or byuncompromising dedication, she was able to control or overcome herweaknesses. Not many are able to do that. 

She had many friends in all walks of life and in different countriesof many nationalities, but always the reaction was the same--acomplete spell of attraction and fascination and generally a longlasting friendship--which once established, was never broken. Andthat because of that tremendous personality. 

Around 1885 lived a young Russian girl, Marie Bashkirtzeff. She wrotesome prose and poetry and did some painting. She lived and died veryyoung from TB on the French Riviera in Nice. Not particularly pretty, nor particularly striking, she had nevertheless a tremendouspersonality. In fact so striking that the city of Nice after herdeath created a Museum Bashkirtzeff where were kept her paintings, her writings and her personal things. The French author FrancoisCoppee said of Marie Bashkirtzeff: "Je l'ai vue une fois, je l'ai vueune heure, je ne l'oublirais jamais. " (I saw her once, I saw her onehour--I shall forget her never. )

I think as far as personality is concerned, this applied likewise toNelka. As I said before, I saw her for the first time when I was butseven years old. The impression I got then never left me throughoutmy life and only grew and developed with time and age. 

We were married for 45 years and my love and devotion to her dateback from that encounter at seven. In other words a span of 60years--a lifetime. A lifetime during which everything was centeredaround this one person. 

I think one can say that she had been both very happy and veryunhappy in her life, at least this was the balance of her feelingsduring the first half of her life. During that period she experiencedgreat happiness in her relationship with her mother and with othermembers of her family, in the devotion and loyalty she had to them. She also experienced happiness in her endeavors in her school work, in her interests in life and for life. The happiness she may havederived from the realization of things well done and accomplished. 

But also there was great, overwhelming unhappiness and sorrow, because of the unusually hard way in which she accepted the loss ofthose who were close to her. Few probably felt such losses as acutelyas she did and this caused pain and anguish. Then there also wasunhappiness in the contradiction and the division of feelings, between two countries, two backgrounds, two ideologies, twoattachments. This constant division brought with it many heartaches, many disappointments. 

And then the second half of her life was the one she passed withme. I can only hope that I may have given her at least a measureof the happiness which she so much deserved. Again there weredisappointments, frustrations and heartaches as there are in everylife and existence. But gradually, with age she seemed to acquire agreater calm in her feelings, she seemed to mellow in her intensity, she seemed to find greater reconciliation within her own beliefs andthoughts and find a greater calm of the soul and a greatersatisfaction in her beliefs than she had before that. 

She always felt that the turning point in her life, as well as inmine, started from the time we were in Constantinople and when we sawa distant aunt of mine, Princess Gorchakoff. 

She was a student of Theosophy and also seemed to have the calm andserenity which comes from the study of that philosophy. Undoubtedlyshe had a good deal of influence on Nelka and started us on a new wayof thinking. Out of this encounter developed gradually all thechanges of beliefs and attitudes which brought about such afundamental and radical change in all the outlooks which Nelka hadheld hitherto and which she was now discarding. 

I think I can say that towards the end she had acquired great moralcalm, satisfaction and serenity. She was not perplexed or afraid ofthe uncertainties of one's beliefs, of the imminence of death or ofthe questions of the hereafter. 

Doubt, uncertainty, perplexity and an unresolved search seemed tohave been supplanted by a feeling of calm and confidence. A greatthing for anyone to have and to be able to have the moral fortitudeto face such a change and to accept it graciously. 

And the change was radical and complete in every phase of her life:

From a framework of an organized Church, the change to a liveinternal belief in the teachings of Christ and an effort to carrythis out in the aspects of everyday living, in reality of applicationand not in dogma. 

From a conservative, ultra conservative aristocratic, nearly feudalsystem of absolute monarchy, an understanding that this had becomeobsolete and had no value except perhaps in it purely externalbeauty--to a realistic approach of a form of Christian socialism andthe brotherhood not only of man but of all living creatures. 

From an accepted habit of meat eating to complete ethicalvegetarianism as a regard to the sanctity of all life. A completeReverence of Life. 

From an intolerance towards the beliefs of others to a completeunderstanding of the others point of view. A tolerance towardsothers, accepting from them only as much as the given person canunderstand in the given time and his mental and moral development, and no more. But at the same time expecting to see that personexercise in practice the full measure of that understanding andbelief. 

From a pride and satisfaction at her aristocratic origin, anadmission that this had no value and that the only thing that countedwas the "aristocracy of the spirit. "

From a worry of having to put a new fur collar on her winter coat toa refusal to wear any fur as being the product of animal slaughter orthe product of the trap, producing protracted agony to the animals. 

From a lack of understanding, if not indifference, to animals anddogs in particular, an intense devotion, love and work for allanimals and for dogs in particular. 

From an interest and participation in medicine, a complete reversalin her attitude towards it because of the vivisectional basis of mostof it. As a result, an ardent and militant anti-vivisectionist. 

A complete change all along the line. 

Despite an often tragic look on life and a serious questioning of itspurposes, despite a great deal of sorrow which she always felt verydeeply, despite an often sad expression on her face in herphotographs, Nelka had a great deal of natural gaiety and atremendous sense of humor. She was always ready to see the funnyqualities of people or the funny side of events and could laugh witha great deal of abandon. 

Despite her strong Russian nationalism, Nelka was fundamentallycosmopolitan. Having had a diversified education in variouscountries, speaking four languages and having traveled extensivelythrough many countries, she had a cosmopolitan mind and outlook andwas perfectly at home in any country and with any nationality, in anysurrounding. 

Nelka's mind was always a very philosophical mind and which was neverat rest. I have never known anyone who did so much constant thinking. She was always thinking, her mind never idle, always trying to "thinkthings out. " Many people are ready or willing to just "accept. " Nelkawas never ready to just "accept. " She would accept only after shehad thought it out and could accept it as a result of her ownthinking. 

Perhaps the most striking change in her outlook and belief was thequestion of war. She had been a strong militarist; that is, that sheunderstood and justified and accepted war. In fact she consideredthat this was the only right attitude that one could have and thatthe willingness to go to war for an idea or a principle could not bequestioned. Thus, she had participated in three Wars. 

But then later, having seen all the horrors of war, its utterfutility, absurdity and uselessness and most of all its immoralityand its contradictions to the principles of the teachings of Christ, she became an uncompromising and militant pacifist. 

Very characteristic of Nelka was her attitude towards all action andactivities motivated for a principle. She was never worried orseeking results. She always said that one should do the right thingas one understood it and not worry about the results, those will takecare of themselves. If you did the right thing, the result was boundto come, but should not be the goal in itself--the goal only being totry to do the maximum according to one's understanding. A veryadmirable conception but one which it is not easy to accept by mostwho only seek results and often with means which might not be theright ones. The concept that the end justifies the means wascertainly the absolute opposite of what she was either seeking orbelieving. 

It took courage to advocate such beliefs and even perhaps morecourage to be able to turn around and so fundamentally change thebeliefs from the ones held to the ones now accepted. But the conceptof accepting only that which one understands at the given time, applied just as much to the beliefs first held as to the onesultimately accepted. 

Nelka was never afraid physically, but she was also never afraidmorally. 

I think after our marriage and also the circumstances of theRevolution Nelka lost some of her restlessness. Marriage for betteror worse was an achievement and carried with it an obligation and apurpose. She took the acceptance of marriage as a completeness and afusion of two persons into one. This in itself was an anchor whichheld back the former restlessness. 

Also the Russia she loved so was gone as a practical and possibleentity and only a memory of a past devotion remained. Therefore, bothmarriage and the Revolution brought about a stabilization of feelingsand a concentration as well. There was less possible diversion andthis brought a mental calm and satisfaction. There was less searchingor even the necessity for it. 

Her loyalty to the principles of marriage was complete likeeverything else in her life to which she never gave less thancompleteness. She always was looking for one hundred percent andnothing less would do. 

In later years of her life and after our marriage, Nelka settled muchmore mentally and morally and seemed to find many of the answers shehad so long been seeking. And this, not because of the externaldifferences of life or the establishment of a marital status, butrather as the result of certain new currents of thought which came asa result of the study of Theosophy and the wisdom of the East. 

While I cannot claim any personal influence which I may havecontributed, there certainly was no divergence and thus no upsettinguncertainties. I think we were blessed in that way that we helpedeach other and followed largely the same path of mental analysis handin hand. 

I feel and consider that I was exceptionally privileged in my life tohave had such a mate, such a guide, such a helper, such a companion. 

She never married before because she had not found the completenessof feeling. I am grateful and happy to think that she found thatcompleteness with me, which I hope I was able to give her at least ina measure. 

She gave me the complete devotion and love which she did for a veryhappy existence and complete understanding between us for 45 years. I, at least, understood what a very extraordinary person she was andwhat a blessing had been bestowed on me for having had her for myown. 

Nelka--a unique name for a unique person.